Philip Pullman Quotes

The surest way to lose truth is to pretend that one already wholly possesses it.

I was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.

Eclecticism - every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

How do I hold my truth to be the truth when everyone else believes their truth to be different.

… a world without certainty can be richer, in all senses of the word, than a world with false convictions.

Tolerance gives us spiritual insight, which is as far from fanaticism as the north pole is from the south.

I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.

Tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous.

I would never feel confident enough to express my views and opinions as the right ones because I just don't think that's possible. There are so many sides to everything that nobody is right or wrong.

Toleration, holding that every other man has the same right to his opinion and faith that we have to ours; and liberality, holding that as no human being can with certainty say, in the clash and conflict of hostile faiths and creeds, what is truth, or that he is surely in possession of it, so everyone should feel that it is quite possible that another equally honest and sincere with himself, and yet holding the contrary opinion, may himself be in possession of the truth.

There is no 'the truth,' 'a truth'--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity.

The person who thinks he has found the ultimate truth is wrong.

To those who feel that their values are THE values, the less controlled systems necessarily present a spectacle of "chaos," simply because such systems respond to a diversity of values. The more successfully such systems respond to diversity, the more "chaos" there will be, by definition, according to the standards of ANY specific set of values- other than diversity or freedom as values. Looked at another way, the more self-righteous observers there are, the more chaos (and "waste") will be seen.

I believe that we respond most and best to work in any art form (and to other experience as well) if we are pluralistic, flexible, relative in our judgments, if we are electic.

Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.

I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace.

One of the most obvious uses of literature, I think, is its encouragement of tolerance... Bigots and fanatics seldom have any use for the arts, because they're so preoccupied with their beliefs and actions that they can't see them also as possibilities.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind.

No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.

I have never altered my feelings towards individuals, as men or as women, whether they believe as I do or not. Can you live as neighbors with me? I can with you; and it is no particular concern of mine whether you believe with me or not.

What I learned is that it's arrogant to be certain of anything. The world is a complex place and only idiots or assholes think they know it all.

Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil... a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons... never to truth.

It is sometimes said that toleration should be refused to the intolerant. In practice this would destroy it... The only remedy for dogmatism and lies is toleration and the greatest possible liberty of expression.

I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt, not bein' so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us and doesn't speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn't care about others.