C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Dogmatism
Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject.
They utter all they think with violence.
When men are the most sure and arrogant, they commonly are the most mistaken.
Those who differ most from the opinions of their fellow men are the most confident of the truth of their own.
He who is certain, or presumes to say he knows, is, whether he be mistaken or in the right, a dogmatist.
Those who refuse the long drudgery of thought, and think with the heart rather than the head, are ever the most fiercely dogmatic in tone.
It is a wrong use of my understanding to make it the rule and measure of another man’s—a use which it is neither fit for nor capable of.
A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.
Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject; and even if excessive scepticism could be maintained it would not be more destructive to all just reasoning and inquiry. When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.