Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Opinions are often influenced by personal interests and biases, similar to how individuals act based on their motives.
This quote by Samuel Butler highlights the idea that opinions are not purely objective, but rather shaped by the vested interests of the individuals who hold them. It suggests that just as a person's actions can be driven by self-interest, so too can the beliefs and opinions they express be influenced by their desires, fears, or agendas. This perspective encourages critical thinking and awareness of the underlying motivations behind the views that people share.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about climate change, it's essential to recognize that opinions may be influenced by economic interests.
More from Samuel Butler
All quotes →To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Similar quotes
It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from.
Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.
Murray said, ´I don´t trust anybody´s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence. War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.´
The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.
If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.
There is no easy way to create a world where men and women can live together... But if such a world is created in our lifetime, it will be done by rejecting the racism, materialism, and violence that has characterized Western civilization and especially by working toward a world of brotherhood, cooperation, and peace.