Source identified
“But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many?”
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Socrates challenges the idea that widespread approval should decide a moral question, directing attention toward informed judgment rather than numerical popularity.
Source note: Crito, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates responds to Crito’s concern about public opinion while awaiting execution.
Source identified
“What is the Seal of Liberty Attained?—To be no longer ashamed of oneself.”
Nietzsche links attained freedom with release from self-shame, framing liberty as partly an inward change in one’s relation to oneself.
Source note: The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 275; Thomas Common translation.
Source identified
“They must only bow to the authority of reason, instead of being the modest slaves of opinion.”
Respectability is grounded in independent reasoning rather than deference to social opinion, making judgment more important than approval.
Source note: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft explicitly connects independence of character with the exercise of understanding.
Source identified
“Public opinion—private laziness.”
The epigram provocatively suggests that adopting public opinion can sometimes substitute borrowed judgment for the harder work of forming one’s own view.
Source note: Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 482, “Repeated Once More”; Helen Zimmern translation.
Source identified
“Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.”
Stanton challenges a moral standard that praises women mainly for self-denial, arguing instead that developing one’s capacities is itself an important obligation.
Source note: The Woman’s Bible, Stanton commentary; the line appears in her critique of idealizing women’s self-sacrifice and is preserved in the Project Gutenberg text.
Source identified
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Emerson attacks rigid consistency when it prevents people from revising judgment in the light of new thought.
Source note: Essay “Self-Reliance”; Emerson criticizes rigid adherence to past opinions when fresh judgment requires revision.