Henri Poincare Quotes

Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.

We always plan too much and always think too little. We resent a call to thinking and hate unfamiliar argument that does not tally with what we already believe or would like to believe.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

I doubt the fact, to begin with, but if it be so even, what is this but in grand words asking me to believe a thing because I like it.

To accept opinions is to gain the good solid feeling of being correct without having to think.

Most people don't like to think. This is why human religions are so popular. It almost doesn't matter what the belief system is, as long as it's firm, consistent, clear in its expectation of the follower, and rigid. Given those characteristics, you can find people who believe in almost anything. It's God's way, they say. God's word. And there are those who will accept that. Gladly. Because, you see, it eliminates the need to think.

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.

All of us, whether we are ignorant of philosophy or professors of philosophy, find it easier to follow dogma than to think.

When did ignorance become a point of view?

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

He that believes all misseth; he that believes nothing, hits not.

The few have said, Think! The many have said, Believe! The first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance.

When a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits.

If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.

He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.

I've gone through most of my life not believing anything. Either I know or I don't know, or I think.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

I do not believe in Belief.

We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can almost be as stupid as a cabbage as long as you doubt.

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.

People are stupid... They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they're afraid it might be true.

Why can you believe the lie, but not the truth?

I don't want them to believe me, I just want them to think.

We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.