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Gullibility Quotes

Browse 97 quotes about Gullibility.

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Gullibility Quotes

“Aging and the prospect of dying by no means enhance the attractiveness of fictitious comforts to come in paradise, or the veracity of malicious myths about hellfire and damnation. Fear and feeblemindedness cannot be credibly pressed into service to support fantastic claims about the cosmos and our ultimate destiny. Whether one would even consider turning to religion in advanced years has much to do with upbringing, which makes all the more important standing up to the presumptions of the religious in front of children. One would regard the Biblical events – a spontaneously igniting bush, a sea’s parting, human parthenogenesis, a resurrected prophet and so on – that supposedly heralded God’s intervention in our affairs as the stuff of fairy tales were it not for the credibility we unwittingly lend them by keeping quiet out of mistaken notions of propriety.”

GodDeathReligionBeliefFictionDestinyBibleAgingParadiseCosmosFairy TalesCredulityMythsGullibilityThe BibleVeracity
Author:Jeffrey Tayler
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“I’ll tell you something else about which I’ve been lately thinking!” he bellowed in a suddenly stentorian voice. “I've been thinking about our beautiful country! Who gave it to us? I’ve been thinking about how God the Almighty gave us this beautiful sprawling land as a reward for how wonderful we are. We’re big, we’re energetic, we’re generous, which is reflected in all our myths, which are so very populated with large high-energy folks who give away all they have! If we have a National Virtue, it is that we are generous, if we have a National Defect, it is that we are too generous! Is it our fault that these little jerks have such a small crappy land? I think not! God Almighty gave them that small crappy land for reasons of His own. It is not my place to start cross-examining God Almighty, asking why He gave them such a small crappy land, my place is to simply enjoy and protect the big bountiful land God Almighty gave us!” Suddenly Phil didn’t seem like quite so much of a nobody to the other Outer Hornerites. What kind of nobody was so vehement, and used so many confusing phrases with so much certainty, and was so completely accurate about how wonderful and generous and underappreciated they were?”

GodPowerCertaintyNationalismBlessingsPoliticiansGullibilityAutocrats
Book:The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
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“What attracted men? Good looks? Certainly if a girl was pretty then she tended to get the attention of men; that was beyond any doubt at all. But it was not just prettiness that mattered, because there were many girls who did not look anything special but who seemed to find no difficulty in making men notice them. These girls dressed in a very careful way; they knew which colours appealed to men (red, and other bright colours; men were like cattle in that respect) [...]”

MenWomen And MenGullibleGullibility
Book:In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
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“Nearly everyday life leans over and says, ‘Come on down!’ But standing at the bottom looking up, it’s finally dawned on me that it’s not these invitations that have dug this hole. Rather, it’s the fact that I accepted them.”

LifeWisdomChoicesWiseFoolAgreeBottomFollowingFoolishHolesRealizationDecisionsChoiceAgreementFoolishnessCreateInvitationsChooseAcceptFollowRealizeGullibleGullibilityChoosingCreatedHoleInvitationRock BottomDigPitDug
Author:Craig D. Lounsbrough
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“The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs... In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck. [Letter to James Smith discussing Jefferson's hate of the doctrine of the Christian trinity, December 8 1822]”

ReasonTrinityGullibilityMartyrsThe TrinityTrinitarianAbsurditiesAthanasianAthanasian Creed
Book:Letters of Thomas Jefferson
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“You can remember how it was, because you weren't really any different. You could believe the things that people told you, too. Their words were gospel, and you trusted them. You believed because you were sixteen…or seventeen…or eighteen. You believed because your dreams had started running up against the Line like it was a brick wall that didn't have a single crack. And you believed—most of all—because you had to. You needed to believe that someone could get out of this town, same way you needed to believe that that someone just might be you. And you held onto that belief. You had to. You held on, and it saw you through the Run, saw you crowned the winner. And it saw you down the black road to a cleared patch of dirt in a cornfield, a spot where Jerry Ricks's Smith & Wesson took all your dreams away.”

BeliefMurderDeceptionSmall TownEscapeHopes And DreamsGullibilityTeenage BoysSecond Person
Book:Dark Harvest
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“Considering mankind's indifference to freedom, their easy gullibility and their facile response to conditioning, one might very plausibly argue that collectivism is the political mode best suited to their disposition and their capacities. Under its regime, the citizen, like the soldier, is relieved of the burden of initiative and is divested of all responsibility, save for doing as he is told.”

MightPoliticalEasyResponsibilityMankindCitizensCapacityResponseSoldierBurdenArguingIndifferenceRegimesInitiativeConsideringDispositionConditioningCollectivismRelievedGullibility
Author:Albert J. Nock
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“I do here in the most solemn and bitter manner curse the Prime Minister of England [sic] for having cumulated all his other betrayals of the national interest and honour, by his last terrible exhibition of dishonour, weakness and gullibility. The depths of infamy which our accurst "love of peace" can lower us are unfathomable.”

LastsInterestTerribleWeaknessEnglandDepthBetrayalBitterMinistersCursePrimeHonourPrime MinisterSolemnExhibitionsUnfathomableNational InterestsInfamyGullibilityDishonour
Author:Enoch Powell
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“The cure-alls of the present day are infinitely various and infinitely obliging. Applied psychology, autosuggestion, and royal roads to learning or to wealth are urged upon us by kindly, if not altogether disinterested, reformers. Simple and easy systems for the dissolution of discord and strife; simple and easy systems for the development of personality and power. Booklets of counsel on 'How to Get What We Want,' which is impossible; booklets on 'Visualization,' warranted to make us want what we get, which is ignoble.”

IfsThinkingWantEasyWealthSimplePsychologyImpossiblePersonalityDevelopmentVariousCuresStrifeRoyalVisualizationPresent DayWishful ThinkingDiscordReformersDissolutionDisinterestedIgnobleGullibility
Author:Agnes Repplier
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“In the field of economics we maintain to this day some of the most primitive ideas, some of the most radically false ideas, some of the most absurd ideas a brain can hold. ... but all this give no uneasiness to the average brain. That long-suffering organ has been trained for more thousands of years than history can uncover to hold in unquestioning patience great blocks of irrelevant idiocy and large active lies.”

GivingYearsLongHas BeensIdeasLyingSufferingBrainFieldsEconomicsAverageActiveAbsurdBlockThis DayOrgansPrimitiveIrrelevantIdiocyGullibilityUneasinessLong Suffering
Author:Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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