Reason/s & Belief

the paradox is a classic reductio ad absurdum

The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

The game of science is, in principle, without end.

if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men. Great men may make great mistakes

The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.

paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.

paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

It is our duty to help those who need help; but it cannot be our duty to make others happy

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.

A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force

Only if we give up our authoritarian attitude in the realm of opinion, only if we establish the attitude of give and take, of readiness to learn from other people, can we hope to control acts of violence inspired by piety and duty.

it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.

Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations, for the sake of an ideal of happiness that may never be realised.

If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.

we do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.

The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, clear, and well-defined will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. The main source of our ignorance lies in the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know.

What we should do, I suggest, is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach. We may admit that our groping is often inspired, but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far it may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority. And we must retain it. For without this idea there can be no objective standards of inquiry; no criticism of our conjectures; no groping for the unknown; no quest for knowledge.

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know. It might do us good to remember from time to time that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.

If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far we may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without risk of dogmatism, the idea that truth itself is beyond all human authority. Indeed, we are not only able to retain this idea, we must retain it. For without it there can be no objective standards of scientific inquiry, no criticism of our conjectured solutions, no groping for the unknown, and no quest for knowledge.

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.

There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority

more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority ... The fundamental mistake made by the philosophical theory of the ultimate sources of our knowledge is that it does not distinguish clearly enough between questions of origin and questions of validity.

Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.

All things living are in search of a better world.

Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.

There are uncertain truths — even true statements that we may take to be false — but there are no uncertain certainties. Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.

Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.

We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That's a clear prescription for disaster.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever it has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.

It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million.

The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.

With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.

They (i. e., the Pythagoreans) did not advocate the free confrontation of conflicting points of view. Instead, like all orthodox religions, they practised a rigidity that prevented them from correcting their errors.

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are.

The library connects us with the insights and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.

Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors.

I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.

Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.

As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky.

War is murder writ large.

Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.

there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined

We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.

whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised.

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group.

the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?

God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it.

Humans are very good at dreaming

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe.

We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both.

We're made of star-stuff.

The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.

We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.

We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.

The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.

History is full of people who out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again

By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one. By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds. It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.

Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil.

You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

All men by nature desire to know.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.

May not we then confidently pronounce that man happy who realizes complete goodness in action, and is adequately furnished with external goods?

For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.

I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.

With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

Education is the best provision for old age.

Hope is a waking dream.

Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.

Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

What is life without love? Love is like the sun; without light, there's no life

inability to disprove

mutually exclusive attributes

because she is invisible, no one can prove that she does not exist (or indeed that she is not pink)

The Invisible Pink Unicorn is an illustration which attempts to demonstrate the absurdity of citing attributes and a lack of evidence as proof of a deity's existence.

Her two defining attributes, invisibility and color (pink), are inconsistent and contradictory; this is part of the satire.

The paradox of something being invisible yet having visible characteristics (e.g., color)

There are humorous mock debates amongst her "followers" concerning her other attributes, such as whether she is completely invisible, or invisible to most, but visible to those who have faith in her

Some arguments are quite elaborate and tortuous, satirizing the disputatiousness and intricacy of the theological debates that occur in many religions