Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth… — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
The rule which should guide us in such cases is simple and obvious enough: that the aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to… — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have… — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land. — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
To consider only one other such witness: the followers of the Buddha have at least as much right to appeal to individual and social… — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe. — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
“ Newton supposed that the case of the planet was similar to that of [a ball spun around on the end of an elastic string]; that it was always pulled in the direction of the sun, and that this attraction or pulling of the sun produced the revolution of the planet, in the same way that the traction or pulling… — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share
To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it… — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
“ Euclid 's Elements has been for nearly twenty-two centuries the encouragement and guide of that scientific thought which is one thing with the progress of man from a worse to a better state. The encouragement; for it contained a body of knowledge that was really known and could be relied on, and that moreover was growing in extent and… — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share
We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra. — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey. — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances. — William Kingdon Clifford Copy Share Image
