Samuel Johnson Quotes

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

You have so often been right that it is perfectly possible that I am wrong…

Reasonable people can have differences.

A friendship that exacts oneness of opinion and conduct is not worth much.

I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions.

I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality.

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself.

No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.

At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.

I have my own opinions; you can have your own opinions.

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

I will avoid demonizing people who don't agree with me about this election.

You should have disagreements with your leaders and your colleagues, but if it becomes immediately a question of questioning people's motives, and if immediately you decide that somebody who sees a whole new situation differently than you must be a bad person and somehow twisted inside, we are not going to get very far in forming a more perfect union.

Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.

With nonfiction, I go in trying to be really honest about what my preconceptions are.

When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine. Why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ...Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

Intolerance is a beautiful thing...There are people that are politically correct that want to say the cardinal sin of the hour is intolerance and I think that is a bunch of junk.

Learn good-humor, never to oppose without just reason; abate some degree of pride and moroseness.

I'd always thought of myself as an open-minded person. I had no patience with anyone who put down other kids because of their race, religion, or sexuality. But that's just one kind of open-mindedness. There's another kind, too, the kind that's willing to see people for who they really are and admit when you were wrong about them. That's the part I still need to work on.

Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.

To admit ignorance is to exhibit wisdom.

It is far better to know our own weaknesses and failures than to point out those of others.

A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.

I wouldn't say that I have overcome opposition so much as I have tried to understand it. The lash of judgment carries a wounding sting, and there's a deeply instinctual tendency to want to respond in kind. I am not proud that my thoughts were blackened with vile opinions about the nature of those who were attacking me.

Feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember