Richard Dawkins Quotes

For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.

He who knows only his own side of the case (argument) knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion

It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite.

Convincing yourself doesn't win an argument.

You cannot 'rationalize' what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called 'truthization.' There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true.

I would proclaim that the vast majority of what [say, Scientific American] is true-yet my ability to defend such a claim is weaker than I would like. And most likely the readers, authors, and editors of that magazine would be equally hard pressed to come up with cogent, non-technical arguments convincing a skeptic of this point, especially if pitted against a clever lawyer arguing the contrary. How come Truth is such a slippery beast?

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert, but for every fact there is not necessarily an equal and opposite fact.

Bias, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. Facts are your firewall against bias.

I simply cannot accept that there are on every story two equal and logical sides to an argument.

Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.

Facts are not truths; they are not conclusions; they are not even premises, but in the nature and parts of premises.

Do not banish reason for inequality; but let your reason serve to make the truth appear where it seems hid, and hide the false seems true.

It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.

You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.

In two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can't be perfectly right.

when a person implores you to be reasonable what he means is that you should speed round forthwith to his point of view.

It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards.

Analogy cannot serve as proof.

[One's] inability to invalidate your hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true.

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

Objectivity means trying to give all sides a hearing. It does not, in my view, mean treating all sides as equal.

Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.

You can't assert an answer just because it's not something else.

Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe.

Opinion is the death of knowledge.