Quotes About Dogmatism

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.

The fact is you cannot be intelligent merely by choosing your opinions. The intelligent man is not the man who holds such-and-such views but the man who has sound reasons for what he believes and yet does not believe it dogmatically. And opinions held for sound reasons have less emotional unity than the opinions of dogmatists because reason is non-party, favouring now one side and now another. That is what people find so unpleasant about it.

If philosophy is to serve a positive purpose, it must not teach mere skepticism, for, while the dogmatist is harmful, the skeptic is useless. 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 of ignorance.

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. To know the truth is more difficult than most men suppose, and to act with ruthless determination in the belief that truth is the monopoly of their party is to invite disaster.

Everyone, whether cardinal or scientist, who believes that his own truth is complete and final must become a dogmatist...The more sincere his faith, the more he is bound to persecute, to save others from falling into error.

They were people who had no doubt whatsoever that the more narrow-minded they became, the closer they got to heaven.

The story of the decadence of the cathedral as a moral power, a spiritual energizer in civilization, is the sad but inevitable story of dogmatism. It is the story of the struggle of free thought with bigotry, religion making common cause with the wrong side.

A lot of harm has come in all eras from people attached to one view of spiritual "truth."

Dogmatism is inversely proportional to evidence.

A bigot delights in public ridicule, for he begins to think he is a martyr. – Sydney Smith

Sê o que os progressistas chamam de extremista.

The dangerous man is the one who has only one idea, because then he'll fight and die for it." [As quoted in The New Yorker , April 25, 2011]

The dogmatist within is always worse than the enemy without.

Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.

We hate the very idea that our own ideas may be mistaken, so we cling dogmatically to our conjectures.

There was no reasoning with a mortal who believed the whole world was wrong about everything, and only he and a handful of others were right—and not merely right but absolutely sure of their rightness because of an imaginary authority that could not be questioned.

little bigotty kind of people.

They are so rigid,' he said in a sudden angry voice. 'Why do they not see that this rigidity turns away our greatest minds?

Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor

From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

Islamic fundamentalism in its activist manifestation is bad news. Religious fundamentalism in general is bad news. We know about religious fundamentalism in South Africa. Calvinist fundamentalism has been an unmitigated force of benightedness in our history.

the tendency not to reverse opinions you already have.

È un bene essere patrioti, sentire di appartenere a una società, a una nazione o a una comunità di fedeli, ma ciò non può giustificare il nazionalismo sciovinista e cieco, l'affermazione dell'eccezione e dell'elezione nazionale e/o religiosa, o ancora l'intransigenza dogmatica di coloro che difendono i propri correligionari in qualsiasi circostanza

Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.