This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Incredulity is not wisdom, but the worst kind of folly. It is folly, because it causes ignorance and mistake, with all the consequents of these; and it is very bad, as being accompanied with disingenuity, obstinacy, rudeness, uncharitableness, and the like, bad dispositions; from which credulity itself, the other extreme sort of folly, is exempt.
Character | Extreme | Folly | Ignorance | Incredulity | Mistake | Wisdom |
Fear, if it be not immoderate, puts a guard about us that does watch and defend us; but credulity keeps us naked, and lays us open to all the sly assaults of ill-intending men: it was a virtue when man was in his innocence; but since his fall, it abuses those that own it.
Character | Fear | Innocence | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue |
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
The credulity of love is the most fundamental source of authority.
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future. Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
There must be a co-education of the different social classes as well as of the two sexes. I might have founded a school giving lessons gratuitously; but a school for poor children only would not be a rational school, since, if they were not taught submission and credulity as in the old type of school, they would have been strongly disposed to rebel, and would instinctively cherish sentiments of hatred.
Children | Giving | Submission | Old |
No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.
Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest.
Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
There are many prophecies and several beliefs concerning world RELIGION, but what is most needed is to understand what religion means. The present religion, the coming religion, or the past religion, is for those who divide the truth, which is one, in to many... It is something living in the soul, in the mind, and in the heart of a man- it is absence keeps man as dead, and its presence gives him life. If there is any religion, it is this.
Absence | Heart | Man | Past | Present | Religion | World | Understand |
I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all.
Cynicism | Nothing | Promise | Skepticism |
In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.
Shoghí Effendi, fully Shoghí Effendí Rabbání
He is very sorry that such undesirable things are every now and then cropping up in … and discouraging you in your work, keeping you from devoting all your spare time in teaching the Cause, and spreading its principles. He does not wish you, however, to lose heart from such things. As the Cause grows its difficulties will increase and its problems will become more numerous. The friends, especially the older ones, should therefore try and stand unmoved by them. In fact the more their difficulties will increase the more they have to take courage and try to solve them. The Master has often said that sorrows are like furrows, the deeper they go the more productive the land becomes. If this problem. .. should be settled other problems will arise. Are the friends to become discouraged or are they to follow the footsteps of the Master and consider them more as chances to show their tenacity of belief and spirit of sacrifice?
Belief | Books | Civilization | Destiny | Future | God | Human race | Humanity | Impetuosity | Infancy | Life | Life | Love | Past | Promise | Race | Time | Vehemence | Vision | Will | Wisdom | World | Youth | Youth | God | Old |
Faith is that conviction upon the mind of the truth of the promises and threatenings of God made known in the gospel; of the certain reality of the rewards and punishments of the life to come, which enables a man, in opposition to all the temptations of a corrupt world, to obey God, in expectation of an invisible reward hereafter.
Chance |
There is an eternal antagonism of interest between the individual and the world at large. The individual will not so much care how much he may suffer in this world provided he can live in men's good thoughts long after he has left it. The world at large does not so much care how much suffering the individual may either endure or cause in this life, provided he will take himself clean away out of men's thoughts, whether for good or ill, when he has left it.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, scarcely one meets with less success than affectation, which is a perpetual disguise of the real character by false appearances.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects and produces new incitements to further progress.
Thomas Browne, fully Sir Thomas Browne
The world is not an inn, but a hospital, and a place, not to live, but to die in.
Will |