Dogmatism Quotes

• For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols

  Aldous Huxley

  Religious, Spring, Idols

  Aldous Huxley (2003). “Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience”, Crossroad 8 Avenue

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• Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

  Thomas Sowell

  Mistake, Decision, Vision

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• The world is so full of possibilities that dogmatism is simply indecent.

  Albert Einstein

  World, Possibility

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• Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Obstacles, Humans, Human Happiness

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• Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Ignorance, Knowing

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.38, Psychology Press

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• Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Order, People, Worst Times

  Richard P. Feynman (2009). “The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist”, p.19, Hachette UK

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• Dogmatism is the anti-Christ of learning.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Christ, Anti Christ

  Alfred North Whitehead (1968). “Modes of Thought”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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• Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

  Sidney Hook

  Ignorance, Doe, Hook

  Sidney Hook (1987). “Out of step: an unquiet life in the 20th century”, Harpercollins

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• Dogmatism spreads its roots in the fertile soil of uncertainty.

  Walter Darby Bannard

  Roots, Religion, Soil

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• A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.

  Isaac Watts

  Believe, Dark, Men

  Isaac Watts, Joseph Emerson (1855). “The Improvement of the Mind”, p.29

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• Arrogance, pedantry, and dogmatism...the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the intellects of the young.

  Henry Seidel Canby

  Teacher, Teaching, Learning

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• In scientific subjects, the natural remedy for dogmatism has been found in research.

  Ronald Fisher

  Research, Natural, Found

  "Eugenics, academic and practical". "The Eugenics Review" Journal, 1935.

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• The logic of validation allows us to move between the two limits of dogmatism and skepticism.

  Paul Ricoeur

  Moving, Validation, Two

  Paul Ricoeur (2006). “From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II”

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• Obstinacy and dogmatism are the surest signs of stupidity. Is there anything more confident, resolute, disdainful, grave and serious than an ass?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Stupidity, Serious, Ass

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• Zen is not a particular state but the normal state: silent, peaceful, unagitated. In Zazen neither intention, analysis, specific effort nor imagination take place. It's enough just to be without hypocrisy, dogmatism, arrogance - embracing all opposites.

  Taisen Deshimaru

  Opposites, Imagination, Hypocrisy

  "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Buddhist Wisdom" by Gill Farrer Halls, (p. 162), 2000.

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• The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

  William Osler

  Spiritual, Atheist, Learning

  Montreal Medical Journal Sept. 1902, p. 696

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• Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

  John Adams

  Education, Mind, Superstitions

  "John Adams: Quotes & Facts". Book by Blago Kirov, 2016.

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• Lord, give me firmness without hardness, steadfastness without dogmatism, love without weakness.

  Jim Elliot

  Giving, Weakness, Lord

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• Tormented by conflicting feelings, I appealed to reason ; and it is reason which, amid so many dogmatic contradictions, now forces the hypothesis upon me. A priori dogmatism, applying itself to God, has proved fruitless: who knows whither the hypothesis, in its turn, will lead us? I will explain therefore how, studying in the silence of my heart, and far from every human consideration, the mystery of social revolutions, God, the great unknown, has become for me an hypothesis, I mean a necessary dialectical tool.

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  Mean, Heart, Silence

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1888). “System of Economical Contradictions: Or, The Philosophy of Misery”

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• Faith: The opposite of dogmatism.

  John Ralston Saul

  Opposites

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• No man should dogmatize except on the subject of theology. Here he can take his stand, and by throwing the burden of proof on the opposition, he is invincible. We have to die to find out whether he is right.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Men, Burden Of Proof, Should

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• Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject; and even if excessive scepticism could be maintained it would not be more destructive to all just reasoning and inquiry. When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.

  David Hume

  Passion, Men, Being Positive

  David Hume (2016). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Revision of Great Book”, p.213, VM eBooks

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• Those who refuse the long drudgery of thought, and think with the heart rather than the head, are ever the most fiercely dogmatic in tone.

  Peter Bayne

  Heart, Thinking, Long

  Peter Bayne (1858). “Essays in Biography and Criticism”, p.20

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• Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Doubt, Answers

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.207, Bertrand Russell

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• The history of science alone can keep the physicist from the mad ambitions of dogmatism as well as the despair of pyrrhonian scepticism.

  Pierre Duhem

  Ambition, Mad, Despair

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