24 quotes
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
It is the sense of power attached to a sense of knowledge that makes men desirous of believing, and afraid of doubting.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence; and where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is worse than presumption to believe.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
The credulous man is father to the liar and the cheat; he lives in the bosom of this his family, and it is no marvel if he should become even as they are.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
But a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves, for then it must cease to be society.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
Then he should have no time to believe.
The Ethics of Belief (1877)
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)
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)
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)