Quotes About Doctrine

Most modern people think of religion as a consolation, but to Epicurus it was the opposite. Supernatural interference with the course of nature seemed to him a source of terror, and immortality fatal to the hope of release from pain. Accordingly he constructed an elaborate doctrine designed to cure men of the beliefs that inspire fear.

Following Locke's doctrine that the mind is a tabula rasa, Helvetius considered the differences between individuals entirely due to differences of education: in every individual, his talents and his virtues are the effect of his instruction.

Any logically coherent body of doctrine is sure to be in part painful and contrary to current prejudices

It is impossible for technique to remain long progressive without science, or for science to flourish where there is no freedom of thought. Consequently insistence on doctrinal uniformity, even in matters quite remote from war, is ultimately fatal to military efficiency in a scientific age.

This argument, expressed in Latin—which is held to make any nonsense respectable—has been erected by the Catholic Church into a first principle: that we cannot err in believing what has been believed always, everywhere, and by everybody. Those who use this argument conveniently forget how many once universal beliefs are now discarded.

Only the guardians, in Plato's language, are to think; the rest are to obey, or to follow leaders like a herd of sheep. This doctrine, often unconsciously, has survived the introduction of political democracy, and has radically vitiated all national systems of education.

I wish to propose a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

El daño que hace una religión es de dos clases, una dependiente de la clase de creencia que se considera que se debe profesar, y otra dependiente de los dogmas particulares en que se cree.

In relation to any political doctrine there are two questions to be asked: (1) Are its theoretical tenets true? (2) Is its practical policy likely to increase human happiness? For my part, I think the theoretical tenets of Communism are false, and I think its practical maxims are such as to produce an immeasurable increase of human misery.

Every proposition, true or false—so the present theory contends—ascribes a predicate to a subject, and—what is a corollary from the above—there is only one subject. The consequences of this doctrine are so strange, that I cannot believe they have been realized by those who maintain it. The theory is in fact self-contradictory.

Belief in eternal hell-fire was an essential item of Christian belief until pretty recent times. In this country, as

Consequently I shall not insist that a Christian must believe in hell.

It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of free-thinkers.

as Shakespeare says: "What's to come is still unsure." Even the shrewdest men are apt to be wildly astray if they prophecy so much as 10 years ahead. Some people will consider this doctrine immoral, but after all it is the Gospel which says "take no thought for the morrow.

The time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine. 2 Timothy 4:3

They want to be teachers of the law, although they don't understand what they are saying or what they are insisting on. 1 Timothy 1:7

Perish the infamous doctrine that man can have property in man. Let us resent with indignation every effort to put a chain upon our minds.

Even Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that the Roman Catholic church, up to the Council of Trent, was basically orthodox - a true church with sound fundamental doctrines as well as significant error.

I add, that those who are bent on restoring the whole church ought to be well instructed in the word, and to abstain from doing anything under the pretext of simplicity.

Broadcast operated under the FCC's fairness doctrine, whose core requirements were that broadcasters cover matters of public importance and that they do so fairly, mostly in the sense that they air competing positions.

The 1987 FCC decision to stop enforcing the fairness doctrine supercharged conservative media into a billion-dollar industry.

I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Si nous voulons que la gloire et les succès accompagnent nos armes, nous ne devons jamais perdre de vue : la doctrine, le temps, l'espace, le commandement, la discipline.

El primero de estos factores es la doctrina; el segundo, el tiempo; el tercero, el terreno; el cuarto, el mando; y el quinto, la disciplina.