The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
One survey found that ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
People have the idea of missionaries as going out with the Bible and hitting natives with it. It's not really what they were doing. They were all doing something rather different.
A lot of people think bigger is better, but not always.
I thought lightning wasn't supposed to strike in the same place twice....sure it does...but only if you're too dumb to move.
A philosopher is, no doubt, entitled to examine even those distinctions that are to be found in the structure of all languages... in that case, such a distinction may be imputed to a vulgar error, which ought to be corrected in philosophy.
There's always way less improv than people think. The truth is something like 15 percent.
Misconceptions play a prominent role in my view of the world.
All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they'll tell you will be wrong.
One of the most common misconceptions about Olympic sports is that they only happen at the Olympics.
These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness
There's always this kind of odd idea that people would say, "Oh, do you know the Queen?" But really people are much smarter than that.
We think of medieval England as being a place of unbelievable cruelty and darkness and superstition. We think of it as all being about fair maidens in castles, and witch-burning, and a belief that the world was flat. Yet all these things are wrong.
I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are both writers they must therefore be hugely congenial," said Anne, rather scornfully. "Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be violently attracted toward each other merely because they were both blacksmiths.
It is a good part of sagacity to have known the foolish desires of the crowd and their unreasonable notions.
One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it. They also believed the world was flat.
Stereotypes have their roots in truth.
A lot of times people come up to me saying 'oh my god you can see,' and they think they're the first person to think of that joke, but they're probably the 10,000th one to say that joke.
Everyone has this notion of the Middle Ages - certainly the early Middle Ages - as being this very superstitious era. I think that all eras are superstitious. We all have our magical thinking.
