This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence ... Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Not... what opinions are held, but... how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, [liberal] opinions are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.
One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ears. Irrationality often manifests itself in upholding the word against the evidence of the eyes. Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.
It is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, amiable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous; and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes.
Assertion | Controversy | Evidence | Government | Ignorance | Learning | Men | Time |
Without controversy, learning doth make the mind of men gentle, generous, amiable and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them curlish, thwarting, and mutinous; and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes.
Assertion | Controversy | Evidence | Government | Ignorance | Learning | Men | Mind | Time |
George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne
Philosophy being nothing else but the study of wisdom and truth, it may with reason be expected that those who have spent most time and pains in it should enjoy a greater calm and serenity of mind, a greater clearness and evidence of knowledge, and be less disturbed with doubts and difficulties than other men.
Evidence | Knowledge | Men | Mind | Nothing | Philosophy | Reason | Serenity | Study | Time | Truth | Wisdom |
In the heat of speculation or of love there may come moments of equal perfection, but they are very unstable. The reason and the heart remain deeply unsatisfied. But the eye finds in nature, and in some supreme achievements of art, constant and fuller satisfaction. For the eye is quick and seems to have been more docile to the education of life than the heart or the reason of man, and able sooner to adapt itself to the reality. Beauty therefore seems to be the clearest manifestation of perfection, and the best evidence of its possibility.
Art | Beauty | Education | Evidence | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Man | Nature | Perfection | Reality | Reason | Speculation | Beauty |
The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce[s] them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
Evidence |
Against the formidable array of cumulative evidence for Determinism, there is but one argument of real force: the immediate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate action.
Action | Argument | Consciousness | Evidence | Force |
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. It would not leave them narrow-minded and bigoted.
Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov
I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
Evidence | Observation | Will |