Certitude Quote by Jon Meacham

“An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.”

Jon Meacham

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.4 out of 5 (7 ratings)

Certitude Evidence Faith Free Free will Freedom Fundamentalism Great Humans Liberty Mind Reason Rejection Religion Tradition

More by Jon Meacham

Scripture is not inerrant; believers are called to interpret biblical texts in light of tradition and reason.

Jon Meacham

Image

As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I've always wondered how on earth people of good will could…

Jon Meacham

Image

We are now living in a post-Roosevelt, post-Reagan universe. What comes next will not be post-partisan, because faction is an intrinsic human impulse.

Jon Meacham

Image

“his other hand. Sensitive to his guest’s affliction, Churchill realized that “every step” was”

Jon Meacham

Image

Too many activists have convinced themselves that they have a monopoly on truth. A little humility and a sense of history could move us…

Jon Meacham

Image

In the fullness of time, I suspect that bigotry against homosexuals will seem as repugnant as racial prejudice does today. Or so one hopes.

Jon Meacham

Image

Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize…

Jon Meacham

Image

“When Lincoln was running for the House of Representatives from Illinois, he was charged with being “a scoffer at religion,” wrote the historian William…

Jon Meacham

Image

“The Man who has not Music in his Soul, Or is not touch’d with Concord of sweet Sounds, Is fit for Treason, Stratagems, and…

Jon Meacham

Image

I am an Episcopalian who takes the faith of my fathers seriously, and I would, I think, be disheartened if my own young children…

Jon Meacham

Image

Only the most unapologetic biblical fundamentalists, for instance, take every biblical injunction literally. If we all took all scripture at the same level of…

Jon Meacham

Image

“There was, of course, a more immediate point to frequent gatherings of lawmakers, diplomats, and cabinet officers at the president’s table. It tends to…

Jon Meacham

Image

Explore all 146 Jon Meacham quotes

More Certitude quotes

From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.

Joseph Heller

Image

What makes friendship indissolute and what doubles its charms is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude.

Honore de Balzac

Image

I can say with unwavering certitude that I have never started a pint of Ben 'n Jerry's ice cream that I didn't finish in…

Gregor Collins

Image

We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we create

Bruce Lee

Image

I don't like quintessential certitude.

Louise Bogan

Image

A mystic doesn’t say “I believe.” They say “I know.” A true mystic will ironically speak with that self-confidence but at the same time…

Richard Rohr

Image

I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in…

Max Born

Image

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So…

Matthew Arnold

Image

Certitude leads to violence. This is a proposition that has an easy application and a difficult one. The easy application is to ideoologues, dogmatists,…

Anonymous