Charles Sanders Peirce Quotes

Belief cannot be reckoned with in terms of science, for science and faith are mutually exclusive.

Science is methodology. As a belief system it's disastrous.

Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Religion and science have always been matters of faith in something. It is the same something.

The only way to know something absolutely is to experience it for yourself; anything less is theory, speculation, and belief. .

The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old. It's not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs.

Truth does not demand belief.

The opinion prevailed among advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed.

There is so much to the human mind we don't understand. But, you see, if you have faith, you can do anything.

I wanted to know how humans came up with a view of the world that had so little magic in it. I needed to understand how they convinced themselves that magic wasn’t important.

Leonardo da Vinci did not take received wisdom - whether from ancient classical thinkers or medieval scholars or from the Bible - without questioning it. And this was the beginning of the scientific method. This is another lesson for our time: that when we have evidence that contradicts a certain belief, we should be willing to change it. I think this made Leonardo, in some ways, a person who better understood the beauty of God's creation than a person who just takes all received wisdom from the Bible on faith.

To live consciously means to seek to be aware of everything that bears on our actions, purposes, values, and goals—to the best of our ability, whatever that ability may be—and to behave in accordance with that which we see and know.

We wear on our faces the results of what we believe and how we behave, and such behavior is most evident in the eyes and on the faces of those who have lived many years.

He [God] just seems so man-made to me. There are so many theories, and not everyone can be right. It's human nature to need a religious crutch, and I don't begrudge anyone that. I just don't need one.

When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer.

In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.

I don't think we're capable of knowledge, but I like to keep an open mind. So if you ask me whether I believe in an afterlife or not, whether I believe in God or not, I can only answer you that all things are possible. And if all things are possible, heaven and hell and the angels are also possible. They're not to be ruled out.

Take faith, for example. For many people in our world, the opposite of faith is doubt. The goal, then, within this understanding, is to eliminate doubt. But faith and doubt aren't opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it's alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt aren't opposites, they are, it turns out, excellent dance partners.

A little fact is worth a whole limbo of dreams.

Our hypotheses are initially rooted in theoretical consistency and elegance, but...ultimatel y it is experiment not rigid belief that determines what is correct.

It's never pleasant to have one's unquestioning beliefs put in their historical context, as I know from experience, I can assure you.

Belief made no difference to the truth.

Science is perhaps the only human activity in which errors are systematically criticized and, in time, corrected.

All ages of belief have been great; all of unbelief have been mean.

Your mind and a computer have one thing in common: neither of them know the difference between the truth... and what you tell it.