Quotations about:
    belief


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Let us believe neither half of the good people tell us of ourselves, nor half the evil they say of others.

Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn (1792-1870) French-Swiss poet
(Attributed)
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Added on 5-Jun-15 | Last updated 6-Jun-15
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If religion is too big for us, we should be careful which parts we choose.

Abdal Hakim Murad (b. 1960) British Muslim shaykh, researcher, writer, academic [b. Timothy John Winter]
“Contentions 2,” #87
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Added on 5-Jun-15 | Last updated 5-Jun-15
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As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.

The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Psalm 42:1 [NRSV (2021 ed.)]
    (Source)

Alternate translations:

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
[KJV (1611)]

As a doe longs
for running streams,
so longs my soul
for you, my God.
[JB (1966)]

As a deer longs for a stream of cool water,
so I long for you, O God.
[GNT (1976)]

As a deer yearns for running streams, so I yearn for you, my God.
[NJB (1985)]

Just like a deer that craves streams of water,
my whole being craves you, God.
[CEB (2011)]

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
[NIV (2011 ed.)]

Like a hind crying for water,
my soul cries for You, O God.
[RJPS (2023 ed.), 42:2]

 
Added on 26-May-15 | Last updated 20-Mar-24
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The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woes, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
In Defense of Women (1918)
 
Added on 22-May-15 | Last updated 22-May-15
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Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries: and though, perhaps, sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturb them. Tell a man passionately in love that he is jilted; bring a score of witnesses of the falsehood of his mistress, it is ten to one but three kind words of hers shall invalidate all their testimonies.

John Locke (1632-1704) English philosopher
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 4, ch. 20, “Of Wrong Assent, or Error” (1690)
 
Added on 15-May-15 | Last updated 15-May-15
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Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) French fabulist and poet
(Attributed)
 
Added on 8-May-15 | Last updated 8-May-15
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In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. […] No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.

David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, historian, empiricist
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Sec. 10 “Of Miracles,” Part 1 (1748)

Often given as just, "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
 
Added on 24-Apr-15 | Last updated 24-Apr-15
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BOOK: Only one thing is gonna walk you though this, Mal: belief.

MAL: You know I always look to you for counsel, but sermons make me sleepy, Shepherd. I ain’t looking for help on high. That’s a long wait for a train don’t come.

BOOK: When I talk about belief, why do you always assume I’m talking about God?

Joss Whedon (b. 1964) American screenwriter, author, producer [Joseph Hill Whedon]
Serenity (2005)
 
Added on 23-Apr-15 | Last updated 23-Apr-15
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More important than any belief a man holds is the way he holds it. Any fool or fanatic can embrace a doctrine. Even if true, it remains a dogma unless it is evaluated in the light of its alternatives, and the relevant evidence for them.

Sidney Hook (1902-1989) American philosopher
Political Power and Personal Freedom, ch. 28 “Socialism Without Utopia: A Rejoinder to Max Eastman”(1959)
 
Added on 17-Apr-15 | Last updated 17-Apr-15
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“I believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.” And I say no, it’s not, Dad. “Well, I believe that it is.” Well, you know, some people believe they’re Napoleon. That’s fine. Beliefs are neat. Cherish them, but don’t share them like they’re the truth.

Bill Hicks (1961-1994) American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, musician [William Melvin "Bill" Hicks]
Filling Up the Hump (1993)
 
Added on 10-Apr-15 | Last updated 18-Apr-16
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Toward no crime have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
Among My Books (1870)
 
Added on 3-Apr-15 | Last updated 3-Apr-15
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Added on 27-Mar-15 | Last updated 14-Apr-21
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To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.

Anatole France (1844-1924) French poet, journalist, novelist, Nobel Laureate [pseud. of Jaques-Anatole-François Thibault]
Speech, Académie Française (24 Dec 1896)
 
Added on 26-Mar-15 | Last updated 26-Mar-15
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If I should try to say anew the creed of the Optimist, I should say something like this: “I believe in God, I believe in Man, I believe in the power of the spirit, I believe we should so act that we may draw nearer and more near the age when no man shall live at his ease while another suffers.”

Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
“Optimism” (1903)
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Added on 9-Mar-15 | Last updated 9-Mar-15
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The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that some day they might force their beliefs on us.

Mario Cuomo (1932-2015) American politician
“Religious Belief and Public Morality,” John A. O’Brien Lecture, U. of Notre Dame (13 Sep 1984)
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Added on 6-Mar-15 | Last updated 6-Mar-15
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He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend, must have a very long head, or a very short creed.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words, #470 (1820 ed.)
 
Added on 27-Feb-15 | Last updated 27-Feb-15
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It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.

John Burroughs (1837-1921) American naturalist
The Light of Day, “The Modern Skeptic” (1900)
 
Added on 20-Feb-15 | Last updated 20-Feb-15
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If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
(Attributed)

Cited in J.F. Boyes, Lacon in Council (1865). Also attributed to Horace Mann.
 
Added on 6-Feb-15 | Last updated 6-Feb-15
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There are those who believe something, and therefore will tolerate nothing; and on the other hand, those who tolerate everything, because they believe nothing.

Robert Browning (1812-1889) English poet
(Attributed)
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Cited in Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908 ed.).
 
Added on 30-Jan-15 | Last updated 30-Jan-15
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The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief — call it what you will — than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.

A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
Year In, Year Out (1952)
 
Added on 29-Jan-15 | Last updated 29-Jan-15
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Every time a child says, “I don’t believe in fairies,” there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

James Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish novelist and dramatist
Peter Pan, Act 1 (1928)
 
Added on 23-Jan-15 | Last updated 23-Jan-15
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You can’t reason someone out of an idea they weren’t reasoned into.

Sig Lines
~
 
Added on 16-Jan-15 | Last updated 16-Jan-15
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Style has to do with the way in which ideas are believed and advocated rather than with the truth or falsity of their content.

Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) American historian and intellectual
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford (Nov 1963)
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Reprinted in Harpers (Nov 1964). Often misattributed to Douglas Hofstadter.
 
Added on 7-Oct-14 | Last updated 7-Oct-14
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GEORGE: There is presumably a calendar date — a moment — when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when, quite suddenly, secretly, the noes had it.

Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
Jumpers, Act 1 (1972)
 
Added on 26-Sep-14 | Last updated 26-Sep-14
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Skepticism is the beginning of faith.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 17 (1891)

See also Emerson, Hesse, Tennyson.
 
Added on 8-Aug-14 | Last updated 29-Aug-14
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ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Absurdity,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
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Included in The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

In later versions, Bierce added:

2. The argument of an opponent. A belief in which one has not had the misfortune to be instructed.
 
Added on 24-Jul-14 | Last updated 2-May-23
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But in stating prudential rules for our government in society I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many of their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves dispassionately what we hear from others standing uncommitted in argument ourselves.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph (24 Nov 1808)
 
Added on 11-Jul-14 | Last updated 3-Aug-22
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I am driven to express my faith by a series of skepticisms.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1845)
 
Added on 11-Jul-14 | Last updated 11-Jul-14
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A ginooine statesman should be on his guard,
Ef he must hev beliefs, nut to b’lieve ’em tu hard.

[A genuine statesman should be on his guard,
If he must have beliefs, not to believe them too hard.]

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
The Bigelow Papers: Second Series, ch. 5 (1867)
 
Added on 9-Jul-14 | Last updated 9-Jul-14
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The religion of one seems madnesse unto another.

Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall, ch. 4 (1658)
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Added on 7-Mar-14 | Last updated 4-Aug-21
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Most Mens Anger about Religion is as if two Men should quarrel for a Lady they neither of them care for.

George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Religion,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (1750)
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Added on 17-Jan-14 | Last updated 30-Jan-20
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The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.

Emerson - The faith that stands on authority is not faith - wist.info quote

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Over-Soul,” Essays: First Series, ch. 9 (1841)
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Added on 27-Dec-13 | Last updated 20-Feb-22
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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.

Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
“Tips for Teens,” Social Studies (1981)
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Added on 11-Dec-13 | Last updated 29-Jun-23
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Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (10 Aug 1787)
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Added on 27-Jun-13 | Last updated 2-Aug-22
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We who hold public office are enjoined by our Constitution against enacting laws to tell the people when or where or how to pray.
All our experience and all our knowledge proves that injunction is good. for, if government could ordain the people’s prayers, government could also ordain its own worship — and that must never be.
The separation of church and state has served our freedom well because men of state have not separated themselves from church and faith and prayer.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech, Presidential Prayer Breakfast (1964-02-05)
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This was at the 12th Annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast.

In the Proceedings of the Illinois State AFL-CIO Convention (1968), there is (a) a reference to a note that the state president of the AFL/CIO, Reuben G. Soderstrom, attending the 16th such Prayer Breakfast, and then (b) a passage on the next page "U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's statement to a tremendous audience contained the following comment:"

Our Constitution separates church and state. We know that separation is a source of our system's strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.

Johnson does not appear to have included this text in his speech at the 16th Presidential Prayer Breakfast, nor does he appear to have gone to the 1968 Illinois AFL/CIO convention. Is this an odd paraphrase of the comments from four years earlier? Did Johnson speak the above in another venue that was also quoted in the Illinois AFL/CIO Convention proceedings? Is this paraphrase actually what he said in 1964, regardless of the written record of his comments?

While that shorter quote, or further paraphrases of it, are easy to find in quotation collections online, I can find no citation associated with it.

 
Added on 6-Mar-13 | Last updated 8-Mar-24
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Have I ever heard a skeptic wax superior and contemptuous? Certainly. I’ve even sometimes heard, to my retrospective dismay, that unpleasant tone in my own voice. There are human imperfections on both sides of this issue. Even when it’s applied sensitively, scientific skepticism may come across as arrogant, dogmatic, heartless and dismissive of the feelings and deeply held beliefs of others. And, it must be said, some scientists and dedicated skeptics apply this tool as a blunt instrument, with little finesse. Sometimes it looks as if the skeptical conclusion came first, that contentions were dismissed before, not after, the evidence was examined. All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well based — or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven’t thought of, or demonstrates that we’ve swept key underlying assumptions under the rug — it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American scientist and writer
The Demon-Haunted World, ch. 17 (1995)
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Added on 14-Dec-12 | Last updated 27-May-21
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Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom” (18 Jun 1779; enacted 16 Jan 1786)
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Added on 2-Aug-12 | Last updated 4-Jul-22
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Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time ….

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,” Preamble (18 Jun 1779; enacted 16 Jan 1786)
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During final debate around the bill's passage:
  • the first clause was struck, changing the beginning to "Whereas Almighty God ...."
  • the phrase "and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint" was struck.
  • the phrase "but to extend it by its influence on reason alone" was struck.
See Jefferson's discussion about a failed amendment to the preamble here.
 
Added on 26-Jul-12 | Last updated 4-Jul-22
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Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.

Horace Mann (1796-1859) American educator
Thoughts (1867)
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Added on 29-May-12 | Last updated 4-Sep-19
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A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 68 (1955)
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Added on 28-Nov-11 | Last updated 23-Jun-22
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If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion.

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
One Thousand & One Epigrams (1911)
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Added on 27-May-11 | Last updated 14-Sep-20
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Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 6 (1782)
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Added on 21-Mar-11 | Last updated 4-Jul-22
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What do I believe? I believe in God, if he exists.

Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist
Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane] (1957) [tr. Gałązka (1962)]
 
Added on 7-Jan-11 | Last updated 29-Mar-22
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All this was inspired by the principle —  which is quite true in itself — that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) German leader
Mein Kampf [My Struggle], Vol. 1, ch. 10 (1925)
 
Added on 10-Nov-10 | Last updated 13-Oct-20
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We are all tattoed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je ne crois pas, mais je les crains, — “I don’t believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
The Poet at the Breakfast Table, ch. 12 (1872)
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Also published in The Atlantic Monthly (Dec 1872).
 
Added on 26-Oct-10 | Last updated 20-Oct-22
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Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Heretics and Heresies” (1874)
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Added on 22-Oct-10 | Last updated 2-Feb-16
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First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.

And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 2 “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion” (1859)
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Added on 4-Aug-10 | Last updated 19-Oct-23
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Conscience can’t be compelled.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #1144 (1732)
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Added on 29-Jul-10 | Last updated 26-Jan-21
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Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17 (1782)
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Added on 19-Jul-10 | Last updated 4-Jul-22
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Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
“Natural Law,” Harvard Law Review (1918-11)
    (Source)

Legal citation: 32 Harvard Law Review 40, 41 (1918).
 
Added on 5-May-10 | Last updated 21-Dec-23
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More quotes by Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr.

But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the great men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17 (1782)
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Added on 29-Apr-10 | Last updated 4-Jul-22
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More quotes by Jefferson, Thomas

It is this belief in absolutes, I would hazard, that is the great enemy today of the life of the mind. This may seem a rash proposition. The fashion of the time is to denounce relativism as the root of all evil. But history suggests that the damage done to humanity by the relativist is far less than the damage done by the absolutist — by the fellow who, as Mr. Dooley once put it, “does what he thinks th’ Lord wud do if He only knew th’ facts in th’ case.”

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007) American historian, author, social critic
“The Opening of the American Mind,” New York Times (23 Jul 1989)
 
Added on 9-Apr-10 | Last updated 7-Apr-17
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Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. They gave the status of almost absolute individual rights to the outward means of expressing belief. I cannot believe that they left open a way for legislation to embarrass or impede the mere intellectual processes by which those expressions of belief are examined and formulated. This is not only because individual thinking presents no danger to society, but because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to wise and considered self-government.

Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 442 (1950) [concurrence and dissent]
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Added on 26-Feb-10 | Last updated 7-Mar-23
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More quotes by Jackson, Robert H.

I think it behooves us to treat our characters’ beliefs with some measure of respect, whatever he believes in. I mean I’m an atheist myself, but I don’t have to believe in Minbari to write about Minbari. I think if that person is a religious character, then you have to treat them with integrity and deal with them properly.

J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Panel Discussion, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts (4 May 1998)
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Added on 19-Feb-10 | Last updated 17-Jul-20
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It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“French Letters: Theories of the New Novel,” Encounter (Dec 1967)
 
Added on 4-Feb-10 | Last updated 28-Jan-20
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