The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Arthur Conan Doyle1 quote
It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all of the evidence. It biases the judgement. — Arthur Conan Doyle · 1887Bertrand Russell1 quote
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. — Bertrand Russell · 1970Carl Sagan1 quote
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. — Carl Sagan · 1996Charles Dickens1 quote
Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule. — Charles Dickens · 1861Christopher Hitchens1 quote
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. — Christopher Hitchens · 2007David Hume1 quote
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. — David Hume · 1748John Locke1 quote
There are very few lovers of truth for truth-sake, even among those who persuade themselves that they are so. How a man may know whether he be so in earnest, is worth inquiry: and I think there is one unerring mark of it, viz. The not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant. Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain, receives not truth in the love of it, loves not truth for truth-sake, but for some other by-end. — John Locke · 1690W.K. Clifford1 quote
It is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. — W.K. Clifford · 1877William James1 quote
Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found? — William James · 1896