Informed Opinion Quotes

I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.

Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself - a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions.

I'm not entitled to have an opinion unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who are in opposition. I think that I am qualified to speak only when I've reached that state.

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

I think that most people who complain about our government have no idea what they're talking about because they've never been to a country with a bad government.

I'm an idiot, basically. I don't think that I'm a dumb guy, but I also realise that I have access to about 0.1 percent of the information that I need to have a truly informed opinion about half the stuff I talk about. I'm like that loud guy in the bar, who kind of makes sense for about ten minutes, and then you realise he flunked everything at high school so you just laugh at him.

I don't claim to know Israel. I don't speak Hebrew; my contacts are pretty limited. But I didn't know Vietnam; I didn't know Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras. It doesn't mean you can't reach your conclusions.

Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome.

If you're going to make comments on economy, study economy. If you're gonna make comments on world history, make sure you learn world history. If you're gonna save lives and be a doctor, you need to study medicine. Then, you will be able to make comments on economy, on medicine, and on world history.

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

I try to read all news sources - not just CNN or FOX, but worldwide papers and journals, to get opinions from every end of the spectrum - and then I like to try to find out the cut and dried facts - and go from there.

People really need to take time and read a book. You know? That’s my advice. You could read A New Slant on Life, you could read Dianetics. And I think if you really read it, you’ll understand it, but unless you do, you’ll speculate. And I think that’s a mistake to do that.

It is only the young and callow and ignorant that admire rashness. Think before you speak. Know your subject.

I have an old-fashioned belief that Americans like to make up their own minds on the basis of all available information.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.

It’s our responsibility to read the newspapers and then say it is our opinion.

If one wants to take a stand on something, one must be very educated about it.

You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them. I mean, nobody wants to put them out of a job and a good critic is not necessarily a dead critic. It's just that people take what a critic says as a fact rather than an opinion, and you have to know whether the opinion of the critic is informed or uninformed, intelligent of stupid -- but most people don't take the trouble.

I love the gray areas, but I like the gray areas as considered by bright, educated, courageous people.

For me it's more important that I outline all the facets of a controversial issue and let the reader make up his or her mind. I don't care if readers change their minds, but I would like readers to ask themselves why their opinion is what it is.

I do not like to state an opinion on a matter unless I know the precise facts.

A great many people do not have the right to their own opinion because they don't know what they are talking about.

That does not mean that we must forego just and fair criticism, or refrain from opposition to policies which are debatable or which do not command our approval.

People who know me know that I'm always interested in an honest, civil exchange of views, and I'm not some Hollywood liberal know-nothing.