Penn Jillette Quotes

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.

Rationality is not just something you do so that you can make more money, it is a binding principle. Rationality is a really good idea. You must avoid the nonsense that is conventional in one's own time. It requires developing systems of thought that improve your batting average over time.

School has no task more important than to teach strict thought, cautious judgment, and logical conclusions, hence it must pay no attention to what hinders these operations, such as religion, for instance.

I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion.

This is one of the great social functions of science - to free people from superstition

I am not an adolescent, nor a romantic. I analyze objectively.

I am not an idiot, and I'm not a Pollyanna sort of kumbaya type.

There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

Mostly, I try to take a rational approach to life.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

I'm against sloppy, emotional thinking.

First, he must hold rational values, and to do this he must be a thinker.

I'm the type of person who responds to facts.

Intelligence is an extremely subtle concept. It's a kind of understanding that flourishes if it's combined with a good memory, but exists anyway even in the absence of good memory. It's the ability to draw consequences from causes, to make correct inferences, to foresee what might be the result, to work out logical problems, to be reasonable, rational, to have the ability to understand the solution from perhaps insufficient information. You know when a person is intelligent, but you can be easily fooled if you are not yourself intelligent.

The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion - in the long run, these are the only people who count.

I'm disturbed when people let superstition, magical thinking, extreme conspiracy theories and so on blur their minds.

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.

The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.

Never act upon wishful thinking. Act without checking the facts, and chances are that you will be swept away along with the mob.

The world can be a lot bet­ter than we set­tle for. All you have to do is ask.

Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.

Skepsis. I am a true skeptic, born under the noble sign of skepsis, the sign of the man who knows that all astrology is absolutely and without reservation the bullest of bullsh*t that ever there was. It is a senseless delusion that does not even have the benefit of being harmless fun. It is a harmful bore. Harmful to the human spirit, harmful to the dignity and wonder of the real universe and the real power of the mind to think for itself. I hate astrology with a fervor that is almost frightening. - Stephen Fry (when asked what sign he would be if he could create his own zodiac)

Hast thou reason? I have. Why then dost not thou use it? For if this does its own work, what else dost thou wish?