Jimmy Johnson Quotes

It is impossible to advance new theories... when you are under the influence of a particular view, or under the pressure of a particular dogma.

I think objectivity is like this strange myth that people think you're supposed to achieve, but actually, the dirty little secret is that it's not attainable any more than pure justice is attainable by the courts.

The validity of doctrine does not depend on whose ox it gores.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

Critics, how I would love if you could clear the word 'sentimental' from your minds.

People tend not to want to question dogma. But I'm afraid of dogma.

The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority.

Custom and authority are no sure evidence of truth.

Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.

Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt.

Notwithstanding this high Ecclesiastical authority, he who dared accept truth only because it could be proved, or proved to be good, and disregard authority, was commonly stigmatized as an infidel.

I deliberately never read about films before I see them.

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

Nothing overshadows truth so completely as authority.

Where there is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

Whoever ventures to attack a system received so generally, and supported by so great a weight of authority, is exposed to various evils. They who have embraced its principles are apt to slight and neglect, or, if that may not he, to conceive it their business to overthrow the heterodox doctrines. What of error they may contain is eagerly seized on, what of truth, is overlooked.

I think I just say what I'm thinking. And - you know, if people relate to it, they relate to it, but - I really - you know, if you really listen to me, I don't have my finger on any pulse.

... we ought even to hold as a fixed principle that what I see white I believe to be black, if the superior authorities define it to be so.

One cannot escape dogmas—those who hold most firmly to dogmas today are those whose only dogma is that dogmas should be feared like the plague.

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

Answers given with authority negate the search for truth.

As soon as we cease to pry about at random, we shall come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma; and as soon as we come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma, not only are the days of our liberty over, but we have lost the password that has hitherto opened to us the gates of success as well.

The mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority.