Intellectual honesty Quote by Christopher Hitchens

“Orwell was one of those upon whom nothing was lost. (This included, as Orwell himself said: “the power of facing unpleasant facts”). By declining to lie, even as far as possible to himself, and by his determination to seek elusive but verifiable truth, he showed how much can be accomplished by an…” quote by Christopher Hitchens — Download Open image

““Orwell was one of those upon whom nothing was lost. (This included, as Orwell himself said: “the power of facing unpleasant facts”). By declining to lie, even as far as possible to himself, and by his determination to seek elusive but verifiable truth, he showed how much can be accomplished by an individual who unites the qualities of intellectual honesty and moral courage..””

Christopher Hitchens

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“The spirit of our accurate and exact philosophy is outraged by conclusions that contradict each other so glaringly.”

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“Many governments employ torture but this was the first time that the element of Saturnalia and pornography in the process had been made so clear to me. If you care to imagine what any inadequate or cruel man might do, given unlimited power over a woman, then anything that you can bring yourself to suspect was what became routine in…

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It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them…

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To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning.

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[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we would not know an evil, wicked act from a decent human act without divine permission, without divine authority or without, even worse, either the fear of a divine punishment or the hope of a divine reward.…

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“In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or,…

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It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.

Christopher Hitchens

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Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be a mug…

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There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have…

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“It isn’t so long since a test of Anglican orthodoxy was applied to anyone seeking to study or teach at Oxford and Cambridge universities. One of the most celebrated victims of this theocratic policy was Shelley (1792-1811) who was expelled from University College, Oxford, for writing a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism. He and his poetry were much influenced…

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Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men…

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It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't…

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More Intellectual honesty quotes

“When it comes to the Big Questions in Life, the preponderance of evidence should be our best advisor to inform our Beliefs. The companion…

Brian Goedken

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Mathematics is persistent intellectual honesty.

Moses Aaron Richardson

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“I would like to raise them as I was. I would like for them to learn naturally, effortlessly, almost without knowing it, that the love of beautiful things, critical thinking, and intellectual honesty are the three essential virtues. This way, they will like things for themselves, will judge for themselves. This way, they will be real men, as there used…

Sean B. Carroll

“But what if absolute consistency on any issue from the left or the right, religious or secular, is an indication of mediocre intelligence and…

Anonymous

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“Recall what used to be the theme of poetry in the romantic era. In neat verses the poet lets us share his private, bourgeois emotions: his sufferings great and small, his nostalgias, his religious or political pre-occupations, and, if he were English, his pipe-smoking reveries. On occasions, individual genius allowed a more subtle emanation to envelope the human nucleus of…

José Ortega y Gasset

“What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda. It’s that precious, fleeting time before we have accumulated enough pride or position to care what other people might think. The same un-self-conscious honesty that enables a three-year-old to splash joyfully in a rain puddle, or tumble laughing in the…

Todd Burpo

“When it comes to the Big Questions in Life, the preponderance of evidence is the best advisor to inform our beliefs. The companion enterprise…

Brian Goedken

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The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained…

Sam Harris

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Deal honestly and objectively with yourself; intellectual honesty and personal courage are the hallmarks of great character.

Brian Tracy

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“For anyone with eyes to see, there can be no doubt that religious faith remains a perpetual source of human conflict. Religion persuades otherwise intelligent men and women to not think, or to think badly, about questions of civilizational importance. And yet it remains taboo to criticize religious faith in our society, or to even observe that some religions are…

Sam Harris

When I talk to anyone or read the writings of anyone who has any axe to grind, I feel that intellectual honesty and balanced judgement have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone's thought is forensic, everyone is simply putting a "case" with deliberate suppression of his opponent's point of view, and, what is more, with complete insensitiveness…

George Orwell