Guglielmo Ferrero Quotes

What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

To attempt this would be like seeing without eyes or directing the gaze of knowledge behind one's own eye. Modern science can acknowledge no other than this epistemological stand-point.

And I've always said, 'If two people think the same thing about everything, one of them isn't necessary.' We need to be able to understand that if we're going to make real progress.

As a species, we can at times be dimwitted and cruel. But we're also capable of learning.

Ignorance breeds fear.

One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for.

While people certainly come to church to receive clear moral guidance, they also come to engage in dialogue about difficult questions, and to find something that isn’t readily available in the larger society—a place where disagreement is handled gracefully and respectfully by people of shared religious values.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Polls show that Americans are of two minds on many matters.

[Richard M.] Nixon did not receive on the same wavelength I was at pains to broadcast on.

Men get opinions as boys learn to spell, by reiteration chiefly.

Never argue with a fool - people might not know the difference.

We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.

The two parties should be turning to each other rather than on each other.

All political movements are like this — we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.

Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.

It's our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It's a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.

Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

Nothing hath an uglier Look to us than Reason, when it is not of our side.

I mean, you know, this idea that somebody we disagree with on economic or social policy or something we have to turn into some kind of ogre or demon, I think, is a mistake. I mean, it's like telling the American people or half the American people that don't agree with you they're all fools. That's just not true.

Ignorance is the parent of fear.

I don't object to polarization if it achieves an objective.

Do not forget that others won’t see the problems the way you look at or vice versa.

Differences in political opinions are as unavoidable … but it is exceedingly to be regretted that subjects cannot be discussed with temper in hand, or decisions submitted to … without improperly implicating the motives which led to them; and this regret borders on chagrin, when we find that men of ability, zealous patriots, having the same general objects in view, the same upright intentions to prosecute them, will not utilize their charity in deciding on the opinions and actions of each other.