Dogmatism Quotes

“One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a "common good"! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

[Commencement Address at Yale University, June 11 1962]”
― John F. Kennedy

“Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.”
― Karl Popper

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

{Letter to his son and 6th US president, John Quincy Adams, November 13 1816}”
― John Adams , The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

“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, Complete Essays, Vol. I: 1920-1925

“Skepticism is thus a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself, so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty. But it is no dwelling-place for permanent settlement. Such can be obtained only through perfect certainty in our knowledge, alike of the objects themselves and of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed.”
― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

“Dogmatism of all kinds--scientific, economic, moral, as well as political--are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so. We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative persons of all sorts, are the possible destroyer of our nicely ordered systems. (p. 76)”
― Rollo May, The Courage to Create

“If it is true that we need a degree of certainty to get by, it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal.”
― Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life

“All the systems which explain so precisely why the world is as it is and why it can never be otherwise, have always called forth in me the same kind of uneasiness one has when face to face with the regulations displayed under the glaring lights of a prison cell. Even if one had been born in prison and had never seen the stars or seas or woods, one would instinctively know of timeless freedom in unlimited space.

My evil star, however, had fated me to be born in times when only the sharply demarcated and precisely calculable where in fashion.... "Of course, I am on the Right, on the Left, in the Centre; I descend from the monkey; I believe only what I see; the universe is going to explode at this or that speed" - we hear such remarks after the first words we exchange, from people whom we would not have expected to introduce themselves as idiots. If one is unfortunate enough to meet them again in five years, everything is different except their authoritative and mostly brutal assuredness. Now they wear a different badge in their buttonhole; and the universe now shrinks at such a speed that your hair stands on end.”
― Ernst Jünger, The Glass Bees

“There is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together into ‘coteries’ where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form of rumor that the outsiders say thus and thus. The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other groups can say.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics

“Man has to awaken to wonder - and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin; none of the philosophical sects has admitted it; none therefore has spoken the truth”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists . . . who often confuse their religion with their science.”
― John C. Eccles, The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind

“Once dogmatism turns out the lights, you might as well close up shop as a civilization and pull up the covers as a sentient life form. You get nowhere with unquestioning certainty. It's thinking with your mind wide shut.”
― Bob Altemeyer

“Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: 'Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it's just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.' At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward's pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Ist eine Lehre zur Satzung erstarrt, hat sie geendet.”
― Lao Tse

“...a man could be dogmatic, and that was all right, or he could be stupid, and no harm done, but stupid and dogmatic at the same time was too much, especially fluxed with body odor.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“The moment a person loses the capacity to think, to question, Tanya considers them no longer human but a machine. And that is why the individual Tanya Degurechaff reveres thought, loves debate, and sneers at dogmatism from the bottom of her heart.”
― Carlo Zen, 幼女戦記 (1) Deus lo vult

“Something else changed when querinalo changed. Our immortality began to become—it is difficult to explain. None of us began to age, nor did we lose our vitality. Rather it was as if what was resilient within us began to stiffen. Traits of character became not merely habits, but defining elements. I suppose for me that it was fortunate — or unfortunate, given my current situation as your prisoner — that one of my defining traits has always been curiosity. Curiosity is one of the seeds of creativity, so that remained to me as well, but many of my associates were less fortunate.
"Remember that Virim recruited us all because we shared a certain idealism. However, I fear that not much time needs to pass for idealism to become dogmatism. This was the case for many of my associates. They became dogmatic, but not regarding the same things."
Firekeeper wondered what dogs had to do with ideas, but thought she understood. Dogs, like wolves, were pack animals, but unlike wolves, dogs retained a juvenile desire to follow. So these spellcasters had been Virim's dogs, and when this stiffening happened, they had become even more doglike. It made sense in a way.”
― Jane Lindskold, Wolf's Blood

“Crutches are not feet, chains are not roots.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“In my heart there is Mecca,
in my heart there is Bethlehem.
Humans come first, gods are disposable,
human choice is the God commandment.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Iftar-e Insaniyat (The Tolerance Hymn)

No borrowed make-believe,
no quicksand of cowardice -
superstition fading from bones,
as we rise above the prejudice.

No faith is faith supreme,
feeding on tears of persecution -
no culture wears the high crown,
each corazon chariots illumination.

Every faith, culture and tradition, has
created minds of most exalted character -
no geography holds exclusive franchise
over greatness, to be infallibly superior.

Belong to the moment, belong to each other,
past the lingering lure of a toxic heaven.
Wake up to Iftar-e Insaniyat - the First Supper,
love be our cosmic chord, tolerance, our hymn.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Everybody has a right to love and happiness, any book, brain or ballot that demands otherwise, take it to the wilderness and set it free, far, far away from civilization.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Merhem-e Manavta (Sufi Sonnet)

Where there is no muslim, non-muslim -
where there is no believer, non-believer -
where all distances are conquered by heart,
outgrowing myths one emerges Merhem-e Manavta.

Compulsion of religion is a thing of the past,
conversion of faith, trivial as changing clothes;
mark of a holy being is not belief, but behavior -
clothes, creed, all wither, not character's glow.

Christian on Sunday, Atheist on Monday,
Buddhist on Tuesday, Sikh on Wednesday,
Hindu on Thursday, Muslim on Friday,
Jewish on Saturday, try the rest the next day.

Love speaks louder than faith,
kindness speaks louder than scripture.
Service is sanctity, my Eid al-Adha -
tolerance is my azaan, my Eid al-Fitr.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Compulsion of religion is a thing of the past, conversion of faith, trivial as changing clothes; mark of a holy being is not belief, but behavior - clothes, creed, all wither, not character's glow.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“Compulsion of religion is a thing of the past,
conversion of faith, trivial as changing clothes;
mark of a holy being is not belief, but behavior -
clothes, creed, all wither, not character's glow.

Christian on Sunday, Atheist on Monday,
Buddhist on Tuesday, Sikh on Wednesday,
Hindu on Thursday, Muslim on Friday,
Jewish on Saturday, try the rest the next day.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“When ethnic cleansing feels enlightened, Sinai becomes septic, Bethlehem becomes Bedlam.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat

“God of The Blue Rock (Sonnet)

God of the gaps cannot
be God of the world,
and God of the world should not
be abused as god of the gaps.

As puny apes on an insignificant blue rock
in a tiny backwater of the galaxy, we know
nothing about the origin of the universe,
but I can tell you one thing for a fact of
earth biology, it has nothing to do with the
anthropomorphic god of all the scriptures.

If all it takes is a couple of burning bushes,
magic tricks and fairytales to quench your
quest for truth, you have neither the brain,
nor the backbone, or the heart to explore truth.

Fairytales provide nourishment for the mind,
but only as tales of fantasy, not of truth.
Myths are crucial part of the social fabric, but
they must never become the backbone of society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“The new dogmatic idea dismantles itself and dissolves, when faced with enough challenges, and an opposing idea with equal challenges is stated.”
― Connor Patrick Sullivan