Philip Guedalla Quotes

Any stigma will do to beat a dogma.

I believe that dogma is often evil.

Men will die upon dogma but will not fall victim to a conclusion.

Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamentalist scientists.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

I feel uneasy at the very idea of a Movement. I see every insight degenerating into a dogma, and fresh thoughts freezing into lifeless party line.

Only an ideologue deals with the world as he would wish it to be, as opposed to the world as it is.

Dogma not only blinds its protagonist, but it muzzles all other opposition.

There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.

It's so easy for folks to normalize their opinions, to engage in a groupthink that is damaging.

All of us, whether we are ignorant of philosophy or professors of philosophy, find it easier to follow dogma than to think.

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

In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

One thing about liberals: It doesn't even occur to them that there is another side to an argument. They are so convinced of the righteousness of their own position that it doesn't dawn on them that a reasonable person might have a different viewpoint.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

Some people seem to gravitate from one fundamentalism to another, from some kind of secular fundamentalism into a religious fundamentalism or the other way around, which is not very helpful.

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

Ostensibly rigorous and realistic, contemporary conservatism is an ideology of denial. Its symbol is a smile button.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics, as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

When people feel a certain religion claims to have all the answers, that's what turns them off.

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.