Thomas Gray Quotes

He that believes all misseth; he that believes nothing, hits not.

Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything.

Man's principle trait is a readiness to believe anything. Otherwise, how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absense of universal gullibility?

A man of good sense always believes what he is told, and what he finds written down.

I do not believe in Belief.

More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing in nothing, than by believing too much.

If you believe that you will believe anything.

Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men for surrendering our 'godly gift' of reason when we cross their mental thresholds?

Credulity is belief in slight evidence, with no evidence, or against evidence.

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

Those who know nothing must believe everything.

Don't accuse anyone with the temerity to question your sad supernatural fantasies of having a 'closed mind' or being 'blind to possibilities'. A closed mind asks no questions, unthinkingly accepting that which it wants to believe. The blindness is all yours.

The typical person has no trouble believing without knowing. What people need to realize is simply that you do not need to believe to know.

I don't discount belief. I just discount most of the things that people believe in.

A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies.

Most Christians are afraid that people will think for themselves; most atheists are afraid that they won’t.

Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.

The matter with human beans," the BFG went on, "is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles.

Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool.

If smart people are parodying it, that's a sure sign that some less smart people are believing it.

There are only two things one has to bear in mind. One has to be credulous - able to believe - and skeptical - able to not believe, because if you are not skeptical, you will believe rubbish. If you are not credulous you will learn nothing and the only way to balance those two is to recognize the mystery of things.

Is there any man that thinks in chains like the man who calls himself a free-thinker? Is there any man so credulous as the man who will not believe in the Bible? He swallows a ton of difficulties, and yet complains that we have swallowed an ounce of them. He has much more need of faith of a certain sort than we have, for skepticism has far harder problems than faith.

Faith does not mean credulity...