Leo Rosten Quotes

The man who believes in giraffes would swallow anything.

A sublime faith in human imbecility has seldom led those who cherish it astray.

One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.

He doubts nothing who knows nothing.

Those who know nothing must believe everything.

The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool.

Faith is the fool's excuse.

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.

He who knows all things and believes nothing is damned.

Some people will believe anything if you whisper it to them.

People in great institutions are occasionally credulous.

I believe anything that anyone tells me. I have found that that is the best way to go through life. When I was younger, I used to be more skeptical, but then I found out that most things were true. So I believe tabloids. I believe legends. I believe anything anyone tells me.

The less you know, the more you believe.

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

It is the fool who thinks he cannot be fooled.

Well, first of all, I'm an incredibly gullible person - I'm so bad that when I said that to someone, my friend said, 'You know, 'gullible' isn't even in the dictionary.' And I said, 'Really?' As I was saying 'Really?' I will acknowledge that I then realized what was happening, but that's how bad I am.

Most people are sceptical about the wrong things and gullible about the wrong things.

Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.

The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things [witches and witchcraft] are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe.

All the Khmer leaders and nobles, all the district chiefs and all the common people are ignorant, stupid, foolish and gullible. They have no idea what is true and what is false.

Credulity without enquiry is a sure way to deceive oneself.