Quotes from thinkers 05/21/2007 10:18 PM

Thinking Quotes
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"Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her:

powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her
Without asking, or warning, she snatches us up into her circling dance, and whirls us on until
we are tired, and drop from her arms." (Huxley, p. 372)
-- Goethe

"Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth."

-- Ludwig Borne

"...any honest inquiry into the reality of nature also yields insights about ourselves..." (Song for the
Blue Ocean, p. 440)

"An observant person sees things overlooked by others. A scientist sees things going on and
then asks how these goings-on array themselves into patterns, patterns that are reliable and
predictable. A really good scientist--or a really good artist for that matter, anyone whose mind
and soul are capable of some extension--sees what is going on, sees the patterns, and asks,
'Why?' What underlying forces are at work? How are those forces exerting themselves? How
may we understand? Once pried from the universe by a great mind or a discerning heart, the
hard-won understanding may then be conveyed and conferred upon humanity at large. A
painting is nothing more than light reflected from the surface of a pigment-covered canvas. But
a great painter can make you see the depth, make you feel the underlying emotion, make you
sense the larger world. That, too, is the power of science: to sense and convey the depth and
dimensionality of nature, to glance at the surface and to divine the shape of the universe around
us." (ibid., p. 362)

"Windy or not, a day this beautiful has to be lived. The day is bright and clear, the sky blue,
and the dry air feels light. A northerly wind stirs a primal urge to move. The geese feel it, and
so do I. Perhaps it is a last internal vestige from a time, long ago, when we migrated with the
seasons across open plains, following the animals we pursued for food. Perhaps that is why the
sight of migrating geese arrests our attention, why we feel the pull. We want to go, to travel in
fresh or moody weather, taking in each newly revealed vista." (ibid., p. 42)

-- Carl Safina

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"I have no possessions that are truly my own. I am like a stranger at a rich man's gate. What I
have is borrowed, and even my knowledge is nothing but hand-me-downs, and an occasional
oddity I pick up by chance. I pass it on to others like me." (The Creative Loop: How the Brain Makes a Mind,
p. 6)

"Evolution has made us creatures of habit, looking for an adaptive niche and staying there. But
what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is our ability to break out of the trap
when it threatens to become a dead end. We may languish for a while in the comfortable niche
of intellectual stagnation until the glint of a distant reflection brings home the full impact of our
predicament, our foolishness. Hope, finally, lies not in the denial of hopelessness but in our
perception of it." (ibid., p. 174)

-- Erich Harth

"I should never stand alone in this desert world, but that manna would drop from heaven, if I
would but rise with every rising sun to gather it." (as quoted on page 238 of Emerson: The Mind on Fire)

"The Greeks saw everything in forms which we are trying to ascertain as law, and classify as
cause." (p. 239)

-- Margaret Fuller

"If acorns start growing into theologians, or if women begin turning into pillars of salt, then we
may wish to hypothesize about a supernatural influence. But until such time as nature becomes
hopelessly unintelligible and unpredictable, we need look no further than nature itself for
explanations."
-- George H. Smith

"Should we be obeying some old piece of paper or should we make our own decisions?"
-- Arthur (the PBS cartoon character) in the "Misfortune Teller" episode

"It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a
hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get
confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods
in the history of man." (The Meaning of It All, p. 34)

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"[When a young person loses faith in his religion because he begins to study
science and its methodology] it isn't that [through the obtaining of real knowledge
that] he knows it all, but he suddenly realizes that he doesn't know it all." (p. 36)

"Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be
so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch
man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate." (p. 39)

"in any organization there ought to be the possibility of discussion... fence sitting is an art, and
it's difficult, and it's important to do, rather than to go headlong in one direction or the other.
It's just better to have action, isn't it than to sit on the fence? Not if you're not sure which way
to go, it isn't." (p. 100)

"By honest I don't mean that you only tell what's true. But you make clear the entire situation.
You make clear all the information that is required for somebody else who is intelligent to make
up their mind." (p. 106)

-- Richard P. Feynman

"Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, but there is everything to lose
when we sacrifice the indispensable tool of reason on the altar of superstition."
-- Freedom From Religion Foundation

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone ever discovers exactly what the universe is
for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more
bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
-- Douglas Adams

"Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds anything; for he is seeking where
nothing can be found. Away with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where there is
no one to open; away with the one who is always asking, for he asks of one who does not
hear."
-- Tertullian (A Christian leader in the early 3rd century--compare to Matt. 7:7)

"Habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge, and still less to the
understanding, of lawful relations." (as quoted in Einstein, History, and Other Passions, p. 200)

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-- David Hume

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not
born of a virgin."
-- Cardinal Bellarmine (1615, during the trial of Galileo)

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it."
-- Joseph Goebbels

"This I believe:
That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.

And this I would fight for:

The freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.

And this I must fight against:

Any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual."
-- John Steinbeck

"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a Sunday afternoon."
-- Susan Ertz

"Religion is a major weapon in the war against reality."

"Help preserve your child's belief in Santa Claus. Tell him or her that Santa will send them to
hell if they don't believe in him."

"Like all religions, the Holy Religion of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is based upon both Logic
and Faith. We have Faith that She is Pink; we Logically know that She is Invisible, because we
can't see Her."

"Although it is said that faith can move mountains, experience shows that dynamite works
better."

"If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust it to tell us where
we're going?"

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"Christianity is an appeal to selfishness. It is a promise of a great reward in the future which is

bought with faith, obedience, time, effort, and money in the present."

"Christians believe that the most wonderful thing that can happen to them is to go to Heaven,
but few of them are in a hurry to make the trip."

"The pig is taught by sermons and epistles to think that God has snout and bristles."

"I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed to force me to
believe as they do."

The scientist yearns to find and eventually know the truth;

The religious man wants the truth to fit his preconceived mold. So, as a result...
The scientist alters his perception to conform to the facts;
The religious man tries to change the facts to conform to his beliefs.

"To become educated is to move from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty."

-- Sources unknown

"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

"This I surely know, if I wrestle with dung, win or lose, I am always defiled." (as quoted in Blind
Watchers of the Sky, p. 39)
-- Rollenhagen (friend of Tycho Brahe)

"It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible."
-- George W. Foote

"To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be
moral, all pretenses but your own."
-- Lionel Strachey (1864-1927) British writer, translator, humorist

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is
by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits."

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-- Dan Barker Former evangelist, author, critic

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says
what he means."

"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no
'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I
want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in
circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the
circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."

-- George Bernard Shaw

"The Bible is the greatest hoax in all history. The leading characters of the Old Testament
would today be in the penitentiary and those of the New would be under observation in
psychopathic wards."
-- Charles Smith (1887-1964) U.S. attorney, author

"It was, after all, Christianity itself which tutored the Western mind to believe that it should
know the truth and the truth would make it free. But now that the student has learned to prize
the truth, he has discovered, with pain both to himself and his teacher, that it can only be
gained at the cost of rejecting the one who first instilled in him the love of it."
-- Van A. Harvey

"Organized religion: The world's largest pyramid scheme."

-- Bernard Katz

"The theory that you should always treat the religious convictions of other people with respect
finds no support in the Gospels."
-- Arnold Lunn (1888-1974), British author

"[T]he only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the
attempt to create, by his words or actions, an impression of the contradictory, the
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impossible, the irrational, and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim."

"If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral
commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction
in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed.
The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments."

-- Ayn Rand

"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought."

-- Graham Greene

"All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few."
-- Marie Henri Beyle (1783-1842)

"I count religion but a childish toy,

And hold there is no sin but ignorance."
-- Christopher Marlowe

"In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles have ceased; But
in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."
-- Ethan Allen in Reason the Only Oracle of Man

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
-- Philip K. Dick

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle.

Every prayer reduces itself to this:
"Great God, grant that twice two be not four."
-- Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) Russian author

"Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation
wrought by the teachings of religion."
-- Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. Psychologist, author The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

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"In the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion
offers to both is only too palpable."
-- Sigmund Freud

"Religion is not insanity but it is born of the stuff which makes for insanity. ...all religions
perform the function of delusion."
-- George Dorsey

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"

(Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

"The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time
around."
--Herb Caen

"Christians, it is needless to say, utterly detest each other. They slander each other constantly
with the vilest forms of abuse and cannot come to any sort of agreement in their teaching. Each
sect brands its own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense, and makes perfect little
pigs of those it wins over to its side."
-- Celsus (2nd Century C.E.)

"Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part,
members of our species simply repeat what they are told--and become upset if they are exposed
to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the
characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely
in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide
behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our
behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at
all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-
congratulatory delusion."
-- Michael Crichton in The Lost World
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"One sees what one wants to see when there is in mind a pre-conceived notion."
(Great Feuds in Science, p. 74)

"A fervently believed idea, even if wrong, dies hard." (p. 76)

"Disputes among natural philosophers are of use to science, as the quarrels of the
great, and the clamors of the little, are necessary to freedom of thought and the
advancement of learning." (a modified quote from Voltaire, p. 79)

-- Hal Hellman

"What is the nature of God? His nature is entirely dependent upon the age or culture that has
reinvented him."
-- Solomon Skink

"The world does not owe us a living, we owe the world a living, our own."
-- Forrest Church (A Chosen Faith : An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism, p. 15)

"The Age of Reason was responsible for making more people into infidels than any other book
except the Bible."
-- Gordon Stein

"Skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to
him who asserts and thinks that he has found."
-- Miguel de Unamuno

"Armies of Bible scholars and theologians have for centuries found respected employment
devising artful explanations of the Bible often not really meaning what it says."
-- J.S. Bullion, Jr.

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."

-- Derek Bok Ex-president of Harvard

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"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."
-- Herbert Agar (A Time for Greatness [1942])

"Every man thinks God is on his side.

The rich and powerful know he is."
-- Jean Anouilh (1910- ) French dramatist, playwright

"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."
-- W. K. Clifford

"Truth in matters of religion is simply the opinion that has survived."

-- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Anglo-Irish author

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike."

-- Delos B. McKown, Ph.D. U.S. professor, philosopher, author Former clergyman

"The old faiths light their candles all about, but burly Truth comes by and puts them out."
-- Lizette Reese

"People fare best when they look not to moral rules and principles, not to priests and churches,
and not to creeds, but to the actual results of what they do."

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-- Richard Taylor

"For emotional reasons, connected with my affection for my parents, I was a reluctant atheist,
but giving up religion brought peace of mind because intellectual conflict was resolved."
-- J. J. C. Smart

"Should one continue to base one's life on a system of belief that--for all its occasional wisdom
and frequent beauty--is demonstrably untrue?"
-- Charles Templeton, former right-hand man to Billy Graham in Farewell to God

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