The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
Added by Lucian Velea
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A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
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Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
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This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
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We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
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An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
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The rule which should guide us in such cases is simple and obvious enough: that the aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of them.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
Added by Lucian Velea
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To consider only one other such witness: the followers of the Buddha have at least as much right to appeal to individual and social experience in support of the authority of the Eastern saviour.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
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Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. A awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
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In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts.
quote by William Kingdon Clifford
Added by Lucian Velea
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