Dogma Quotes

• When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

  Anais Nin

  Truth, Reality, Political

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• The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Change, Past, Space

  Annual Message to Congress, 1 Dec. 1862

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• Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.

  Steve Jobs

  Inspirational, Life, Graduation

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

  Dorothy Parker

  Tricks, Wit, Teach

  Attributed to Dorothy Parker after her death in Robert E. Drennan "The Algonquin Wits" (p. 124), 1968.

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• Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

  Steve Jobs

  Inspirational, Motivational, Inspiring

  Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

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• The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Change, Wisdom, Time

  Annual Message to Congress, 1 Dec. 1862

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• The Gateway to Christianity is not through an intricate labyrinth of dogma, but by a simple belief in the person of Christ.

  Norman Vincent Peale

  Christian, Wise, Simple

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• In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.

  William Robertson Smith

  Religious, People, Religion

  William Robertson Smith (1907). “Religion of the Semites (Ppr)”, p.17, Transaction Publishers

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• When you look at other countries that are developing the capabilities and the technology to deploy missiles of very significant destructive capability with nuclear, chemical, or biological warheads, then the MAD dogma makes even less sense.

  Don Nickles

  Country, Technology, Mad

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• From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.

  John Henry Newman

  Dream, Ideas, Religion

  'Apologia pro Vita Sua' (1864) 'History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839'

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• The new spirituality will step away from dogma, will step away from 'We're right and you're wrong.'

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Spiritual, Steps, Spirituality

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• As liberty and intelligence have increased the people have more and more revolted against the theological dogmas that contradict common sense and wound the tenderest sensibilities of the soul.

  Catharine Beecher

  People, Common Sense, Soul

  Catharine Esther Beecher (1864). “Religious Training of Children in the School, the Family, and the Church”, p.212

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• Conventional dogmas, even if endowed with the authority of an Aristotle - ancient or modern - must be tested vigorously. If they are found wanting, we need not bother with them. But if they are found to be substantially correct, we may not overlook them.

  Norman Lamm

  Needs, May, Ancient

  Norman Lamm (2006). “Faith and Doubt: Studies in Traditional Jewish Thought”, p.122, KTAV Publishing House, Inc.

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• Indeed, in view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science.

  Muhammad Iqbal

  Views, Foundation, Principles

  Sir Muhammad Iqbal, University of the Punjab. Dept. of Iqbal Studies, University of the Punjab (1982). “Iqbal centenary papers”

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• Liberalism is an attitude rather than a set of dogmas - an attitude that insists upon questioning all plausible and self-evident propositions, seeking not to reject them but to find out what evidence there is to support them rather than their possible alternatives.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Attitude, Self, Support

  Morris Raphael Cohen (1993). “The Faith of a Liberal”, p.437, Transaction Publishers

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• The tragedy is that we cannot believe the dogmas of religion and metaphysics if we have the strict methods of truth in heart and head, but on the other hand, we have become through the development of humanity so tenderly suffering that we need the highest kind of means of salvation and consolation: whence arises the danger that man may bleed to death through the truth that he realises.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Believe, Heart, Mean

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• The dogma of the Ghost in the machine.

  Gilbert Ryle

  Machines, Ghost

  The Concept of Mind ch. 1 (1949)

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• So much of religion is exegesis. I would rather follow in the footprints of Christ than all of the dogma.

  Christy Turlington

  Religion, Christ, Footprint

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• The dogma of woman's complete historical subjection to men must be rated as one of the most fantastic myths ever created by the human mind.

  Mary Ritter Beard

  Women, Historical, Mind

  Mary Ritter Beard, Ann J. Lane (1977). “Making Women's History: The Essential Mary Ritter Beard”, p.185, Feminist Press at CUNY

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• Outside the practice of science itself, scientists have sometimes been the greatest offenders in adhering to dogmatic ideas against all the evidence.

  Mary Hesse

  Science, Ideas, Practice

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• Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Atheist, People

  "There is No God (And You Know It)" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 6, 2005.

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• Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.

  Isaac Asimov

  Faith, Emotional, Guarantees That

  Isaac Asimov (1991). “Great Tales of the Golden Age of Science Fiction”, Bbs Publishing Corporation

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• I can still recall vividly how Freud said to me, "My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most essential thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma of it, an unshakable bulwark" ... In some astonishment I asked him, "A bulwark-against what?" To which he replied, "Against the black tide of mud"-and here he hesitated for a moment, then added of occultism.

  Carl Jung

  Science, Promise, Black

  Carl Gustav Jung (1973). “Memories, dreams, reflections”, Random House Inc

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• This truth must be recognized as a dogma and assume the validity of an axiom in the general understanding of painting

  Fernand Leger

  Understanding, Assuming, Painting

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• So the idea that there is nothing essential, in the sense that there are no human universals, is dogma. Ask most anyone who is going to be shot at dawn.

  Catharine MacKinnon

  Aquariums, Ideas, Dawn

  Catharine A. MacKinnon (2007). “Are Women Human?”, p.53, Harvard University Press

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