Originator Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

“It all comes down to this: Whenever theory supersedes evidence, and prejudice deposes rationalism, there can be no real justice.”

— John E. Douglas

“An idea is a very powerful thing, and political ideas or religious ideas or economic ideas have always affected and often controlled the courses…

— J.C. Wylie

“A new idea, inconsistent with some of the beliefs which he holds, means the necessity of rearranging his mind; and this process is laborious,…

— John Bagnell Bury

A powerful idea communicates some of its power to the man who contradicts it

— Marcel Proust

Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.

— Imre Lakatos

The words 'theory' and 'practice' are of Greek origin; they carry our thoughts back to the ancient philosophers by whom they were contrived, and…

— William John Macquorn Rankine

“If a concept or principle finds its place in an explanatory theory, it cannot be excluded on methodological grounds.”

— Noam Chomsky

“This principle eludes most people, but it is critical: You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you…

— Ed Catmull

But the fact a person denies that he is theorising is no reason for taking him at his word and failing to investigate what…

— Talcott Parsons

“and I think (like you, by the way) that theory cannot be fabricated out of the results of observation, but that it can only…

— Albert Einstein

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe it.

— Don Marquis

The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one, analogously, an injustice is tolerable…

— John Rawls