unquestioning adherence Quotes

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

orthodoxy is a fixed habit of mind. The average man and woman hug their orthodoxies and spit their venom on those that outrage them.

Dogmatism is the anti-Christ of learning.

I am nervous about dogmas of any kind, whether they be religious, political, or anti-religious. Too many heads have rolled because of them.

The second-hand artist blindly following his sensei or sifu accepts his pattern. As a result, his action is and , more importantly, his thinking become mechanical. His responses become automatic, according to set patterns, making him narrow and limited.

The simple faith in progress is not a conviction belonging to strength, but one belonging to acquiescence and hence to weakness.

The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.

To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

Dogmas are the toys that amuse and can satisfy but unreasoning children. They are the offspring of human speculation and prejudiced fancy.

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It's not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking.

some people seem to graze like sheep in the placid pastures of their faith. Some of them were born there and never broke away ... Others, after some wandering, found shelter there and are quiet and content. They look with a bland mystification at the mavericks.

Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.

Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.