I disagree, I just heard this phrase from you the first time just now, and I don't think it's self-explanatory.
It's unclear to me in what respect the opinions are "strong" if not one's conviction in them. To my mind a strong opinion is an opinion one is confident in.
Also it's unclear to me if/how/why this is better than "less opinions". Like is it better to have a "strong opinion weakly held" on topic X versus "My opinion is pending scientific research will answer this"?
A nitpick -- I actually have a pretty big distaste for maxims that have some cutesy rhyming/wordplay to them (in this case it's X y, !X z, X = strong).
I agree it's not self-explanatory. All such pithy statements are only insightful based on hard-won experience behind them—the map is not the territory, after all ;)
As far as "strong opinions, weakly held", this is one of my favorites at work in a large scale product engineering environment. It goes beyond "mental liquidity" as described in the OA (which is really just about the "weakly held" part). The "strong opinions" part is that often times groups will succumb to analysis paralysis or unwillingness to make a decision due to group dynamics. Having a strong opinion (ideally backed by knowledge and expertise) is a way to push through and bring clarity. The risk is there is a personality type prone to blustering overconfidence that will push a group in a certain direction without reasonable justification. Ideally what you want is a critical mass of smart, decisive, but open-minded people who are quick to assimilate new evidence into their viewpoint.
I'm not interested in delving into pedantry, so I'll stop after this. My intuitive understanding of this phrase is that strong or weak opinions are generally a measure of magnitude more than stability, while strongly or weakly held opinions are a matter of stability rather than magnitude. Someone might have a milder opinion of something, like "Pepperoni pizza is fine" vs. a stronger stance, such as "Pepperoni pizza is the BEST pizza." How easily that opinion is changed does not necessarily correlate. Perhaps the person who thinks pepperoni pizza is the best has never tried salami pizza and will be an instant convert. Maybe they're the worlds BIGGEST pepperoni fan. Maybe the person with the weaker opinion on pepperoni might be very very unlikely to change it because they don't care enough about pizza in general to consider it much. Maybe they love pizza, but are one bite of pepperoni pizza away from saying "bleh, hand me a slice of mushroom."
> To my mind a strong opinion is an opinion one is confident in.
That's the correct interpretation of "strong opinions", as I understand the phrase.
The "weakly held" part means that you are willing to adjust your opinion in the face of contradictory evidence, which is difficult to do for deeply held beliefs.
