Donald Rumsfeld Quotes

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

I wish to propose for the reader's favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

There is no such thing as absolute proof. There is only evidence.

You can't prove that something doesn't exist. You can only prove that something does exist.

The word 'belief' is a difficult thing for me. I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it - I don't need to believe it.

There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

A proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts.

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof

In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation — and reason is the best confirmation

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?

But what, after all, is faith? It is a state of mind that leads people to believe something - it doesn't matter what - in the total absence of supporting evidence. If there were good supporting evidence then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us to believe it anyway. It is this that makes the often-parroted claim that 'evolution itself is a matter of faith' so silly. People believe in evolution not because they arbitrarily want to believe it but because of overwhelming, publicly available evidence.

The absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence

It has been said that metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.

Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them?

No evidence or proof of the existence of a God has been found in the phenomena of nature, based on experience.

The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.

And no one has the right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps will ever do. But surely ... they would have put it into spirits, or into the Illustrated News, or perhaps cut it into two halves, poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would each say about it.

The only roads of enquiry there are to think of: one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, this is the path of persuasion (for truth is its companion); the other, that it is not and that it must not be - this I say to you is a path wholly unknowable.

A skeptic, I would ask for consistency first of all.

i cannot be called upon to know a negative or to prove a negative. if there is a god and you prove it, that's fine. but you don't tell me you can't know that there isn't. i would say yes i know there isn't because i have been given no evidence.

Billy squinted at me. "Why are you letting them go?" "Because they're real." "How do you know?" "The one I was holding crapped on my hand.