Believe Quotes (6)
A visitor to Niels Bohr's country cottage, noticing a horseshoe hanging on the wall, teasing the eminent scientist about this ancient superstition. 'Can it be true that you, of all people, believe it will bring you luck?'
'Of course not,' replied Bohr, 'but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not.'
'Of course not,' replied Bohr, 'but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not.'
As described in Clifton Fadiman (ed.), André Bernard (ed.), Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes (2000), 68.
Science is teaching man to know and reverence truth, and to believe that only so far as he knows and loves it can he live worthily on earth, and vindicate the dignity of his spirit.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 382.
See also: | Knowledge (330) | Live (4) | Love (29) | Man (112) | Science (444) | Spirit (9) | Teach (10) | Truth (241) | Worth (4)
There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
Manhood of Humanity (1921), 4. Sometimes seen misquoted as 'slice through life.'
To see every day how people get the name ‘genius' just as the wood-lice in the
cellar the name ‘millipede'—not because they have that many feet, but because most people don't want to count to 14—this has had the result that I don't believe anyone any more without checking.
Lichtenberg: Aphorisms & Letters (1969), 48, translated by Franz H. Mautner and Henry Hatfield.
Why are you so sure parallel lines exist?
Believe nothing, merely because you have been told it, or because it is traditional, or because you have imagined it.
Believe nothing, merely because you have been told it, or because it is traditional, or because you have imagined it.
In George Edward Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane (1982), 47.
William James used to preach the 'will to believe'. For my part, I should wish to preach the 'will to doubt.' … What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Sceptical Essays (1928). In Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain (1986), 51.
