41 quotes
Then he should have no time to believe.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
Energy of position, defined by the statement of the law that the work done in getting from one position to another is the same by whatever path the change of position is made.
Energy and Force (1873)
The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not know is like what we know.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
In the first case he is lying, and his moral character is to blame; in the second case he is ignorant or mistaken, and it is only his knowledge or his judgment which is in fault.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
We may believe the statement of another person, when there is reasonable ground for supposing that he knows the matter of which he speaks, and that he is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
If God holds all mankind guilty for the sin of Adam, if he has visited upon the innocent the punishment of the guilty, if he is to torture any single soul for ever, then it is wrong to worship him.
Energy [is of two kinds: 1. Energy of motion; 2. Energy of position].
Energy and Force (1873)
I am endeavouring in a general way to explain the laws of double refraction on this hypothesis, but have not yet arrived at any results sufficiently decisive to be communicated.
On the Space-Theory of Matter (1870)
Inquiry into the evidence of a doctrine is not to be made once for all, and then taken as finally settled. It is never lawful to stifle a doubt; for either it can be honestly answered by means of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry was not complete.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
[E]nergy is conserved, or is indestructible. This form of speech might be applied to other cases of alternate immortality, where one of two things comes into existence on disappearance of the other.
It is hardly in human nature that a man should quite accurately gauge the limits of his own insight; but it is the duty of those who profit by his work to consider carefully where he may have been carried beyond it.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his beliefs with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
It might be said to the agitator, "However convinced you were of the justice of your cause and the truth of your convictions, you ought not to have made a public attack upon any man's character until you had examined the evidence on both sides with the utmost patience and care."
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
A bad action is always bad at the time when it is done, no matter what happens afterwards. Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
However plain and obvious these reasons may be, so that no man of ordinary intelligence, reflecting upon the matter, could fail to arrive at them, it is nevertheless true that a great many persons do habitually disregard them in weighing testimony.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
Force, defined as above, is not conserved at all. It may appear and disappear; it is continually being created and destroyed. "Conservation of force" is, mathematically speaking, a contradiction in terms.
Energy and Force (1873)
The fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives us the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and pleasant to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it is true. And the question which our conscience is always asking about that which we are tempted to believe is not, "Is it comfortable and pleasant?" but, "Is it true?"
The Ethics of Belief (1877)