Leslie Stephen Quotes

Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do 'faith.'

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

Convictions are much more an enemy of the truth than lies.

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

I suppose that one is always tempted to challenge those who think that they and they alone possess the truth or the way or the key to the mystery.

The greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe.

The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.

No man is a Christian who cheats his fellows, perverts the truth, or speaks of a "clean bomb" yet he will be the first to make public his faith in God.

Faith means the will to avoid knowing what is true.

Religions do not teach doubt.

"We're going to be okay." Here's the thing about being a spy: sometimes all you have are your lies. They protect your cover and keep your secrets, and right then I needed to believe that it was true even when all the facts said otherwise.

Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out.

Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.

I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.

How can the unknown merit reverence? In other words how can you revere that of which you are ignorant? At the same time, it would be ridiculous to propose that what we know merits reverence. What we know merits any one of a number of things, but it stands to reason reverence isn't one of them. In other words, apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?

It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.

Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?

The world doesn't want you to know. They want you to believe. But there is a big difference between believing and knowing. Should you believe in yourself or should you know yourself?

Some go to church to take a walk; some go there to laugh and talk. Some go there to meet a friend; some go there their time to spend. Some go there to meet a lover; some go there a fault to cover. Some go there for speculation; some go there for observation. Some go there to doze and nod; the wise go there to worship God.

Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.

How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.

When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?