On #Freedom to Believe
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"No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character."
— William Kingdon Clifford
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"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
— William Kingdon Clifford
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"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
— Christopher Hitchens
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"The attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices."
— Bertrand Russell