Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Dogmatism

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which within a few days I should dissent myself…. Where we desire to be informed, ’tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but to confirm and establish our opinions ’tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own.

He who is certain, or presumes to say he knows, is, whether he be mistaken or in the right, a dogmatist.

The dogmatist’s opinioned assurance is paramount to argument.

The very dogmatizer that teacheth for doctrines or commandments of God his own dictates.

The fault lieth altogether in the dogmatics, that is to say, those that are imperfectly learned, and with passion press to have their opinion pass everywhere for truth.

They utter all they think with a violence and indisposition, unexamined, without relation to person, place, or fitness.

Men would often see what a small pittance of reason is mixed with those huffing opinions they are swelled with, with which they are so armed at all points, and with which they so confidently lay about them.

A man brings his mind to be positive and fierce for positions whose evidence he has never examined.

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.

The assuming an authority to dictate to others, and a forwardness to prescribe to their opinions, is a constant concomitant of this bias of our judgments.

The dogmatist is sure of everything, and the sceptic believes nothing.

A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbours. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbours 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.

A dogmatic in religion is not a great way off from a bigot, and is in high danger of growing up to be a bloody persecutor.