Evidence Quotes - Page 11

• Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence

  Carl Sagan

  Demand, Claims, Extraordinary

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• The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life - much less intelligence - beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Technology, Listening, Doe

  "Credo". Essay by Arthur C. Clarke (1991), later published in Arthur C. Clarke "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!: Collected Essays, 1934-1998" (p. 360), 1990.

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• The evidence is in, and you are the verdict.

  Anne Lamott

  Verdict

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.46, Anchor

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• Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational, deeply secular, whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, "It doesn't look good at all. Doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever." That's hope. I'm a prisoner of hope, though. Gonna die a prisoner of hope.

  Cornel West

  Believe, Odds, People

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• It's hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

  Molly Ivins

  Sound, Sides, Arguing

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• We must be careful not to choose, but to let God's Holy Spirit manage our lives; not to smooth down and explain away, but to stir up the gift and allow God's Spirit to disturb us and disturb us and disturb us until we yield and yield and yield and the possibility in God's mind for us becomes an established fact in our lives, with the rivers in evidence meeting the need of a dying world.

  Smith Wigglesworth

  Letting Go, Yield, Rivers

  Smith Wigglesworth (2016). “Smith Wigglesworth on Manifesting the Power of God: Walking in God's Anointing Every Day of the Year”, p.123, Destiny Image Publishers

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• Every age manifests itself by some external evidence. In a period such as ours when only a comparatively few individuals seem to be given to religion, some form other than the Gothic cathedral must be found. Industry concerns the greatest numbers-it may be true, as has been said, that our factories are our substitute for religious expression.

  Charles Sheeler

  Religious, Expression, Numbers

  Charles Brock, Charles Sheeler, National Gallery of Art (U.S.), Art Institute of Chicago, M.H. De Young Memorial Museum (2006). “Charles Sheeler: across media”, University of California Press

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• We should listen less to the opinions of those who either overtly promote or stubbornly reject complementary and alternative medicine without acceptable evidence. The many patients who use complementary and alternative medicine deserve better. Patients and healthcare providers need to know which forms are safe and effective. Its future should (and hopefully will) be determined by unbiased scientific evaluation.

  Edzard Ernst

  Pain, Medicine, Deserve Better

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• "Objective" means that, in a confrontation with the evidence, you would be willing to change your own mind.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Pain, Mean, Mind

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• Hopefully we are emerging from an era of fantasy explanations for real phenomena. The authors certainly have to face a community of therapists who are obsessionally committed to explanations for disease and for therapy unsupported by a scrap of evidence except for their claimed therapeutic success.

  Patrick David Wall

  Pain, Real, Community

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• Bertrand Russell used to employ the method of "evidence against interest"; in other words of deciding that a critique of capital punishment, say, carried more weight if it came from a prison governor. (My friend John O'Sullivan puts it like this: If the pope says he believes in God, he's only doing his job; if he says he doesn't believe in God, he may be on to something.)

  Christopher Hitchens

  Jobs, Believe, Punishment

  "What Sharon Did" by Christopher Hitchens, www.slate.com. January 5, 2006.

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• Among the many inconsistencies which folly produces or infirmity suffers in the human mind, there has often been observed a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings... Those whom the appearance of virtue or the evidence of genius has tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer, in whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Curiosity, Mind

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.163, Univ of California Press

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• David Irving has consistenly applied an evidential double standard, demanding absolute documentary proof to convict the Germans (as when he sought to show that Hitler was not responsible for the Holocaust), while relying on circumstantial evidence to condemn the British (as in his account of the Allied bombing of Dresden).

  David Cannadine

  Holocaust, Double Standard, Documentaries

  David Cannadine (1998). “History in Our Time”, p.224, Yale University Press

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• I had not seen that until - and when it first came out I was told. I had not seen or been aware of all of that physical evidence. And when I saw it, I was horrified. It was so astounding to me to see that there was that much evidence.

  Patty Hearst

  Saws, Firsts

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• If my interlocutor desires to convince me that Jupiter has inhabitants, and that his description of them is accurate, it is for him to bring forward evidence in support of his contention. The burden of proof evidently lies on him; it is not for me to prove that no such beings exist before my non-belief is justified, but for him to prove that they do exist before my belief can be fairly claimed. Similarly, it is for the affirmer of God's existence to bring evidence in support of his affirmation; the burden of proof lies on him.

  Annie Besant

  Lying, Burden Of Proof, Support

  Annie Besant (2014). “The Origins of Theosophy (Routledge Revivals): Annie Besant - The Atheist Years”, p.282, Routledge

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• All things considered, I can see no reason to adopt the afterlife hypothesis. I am sure I shall remain in a minority for a long time to come, especially among experiencers, but for me the evidence and the arguments are overwhelming ... We are biological organisms, evolved in fascinating ways for no purpose at all and with no end in mind. We are simply here and this is how it is. I have no self and "I" own nothing. There is no one to die. There is just this moment, and now this, and now this.

  Susan Blackmore

  Self, Afterlife, Long

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• Reason bases its decisions on evidence available to everyone, and allows people to disagree when evidence is lacking. Religion will never do that.

  Richard Carrier

  People, Decision, Atheism

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• If there is a soul, what is it, and where did it come from, and where does it go? Can anyone who is guided by his reason possibly imagine a soul independent of a body, or the place of its residence, or the character of it, or anything concerning it? If man is justified in any belief or disbelief on any subject, he is warranted in the disbelief in a soul. Not one scrap of evidence exists to prove any such impossible thing.

  Clarence Darrow

  Character, Independent, Men

  Clarence Darrow (1995). “Why I Am an Agnostic and Other Essays”

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• If there is no God or no evidence of God and certainly no evidence of a very morally engaged god, then whatever has to be done has to be done by us.

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Atheism, Done, Evidence Of God

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• Minds fettered by this doctrine no longer inquire concerning a proposition whether it is attested by sufficient evidence, but whether it accords with Scripture; they do not search for facts as such, but for facts that will bear out their doctrine. It is easy to see that this mental habit blunts not only the perception of truth, but the sense of truthfulness, and that the man whose faith drives him into fallacies treads close upon the precipice of falsehood.

  George Eliot

  Men, Perception, Mind

  George Eliot (2016). “The Essays of George Eliot: Top Novelist Focus”, p.45, 谷月社

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• The fact that all our ape cousins - chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans - can acquire signs - is powerful evidence that our hominid ancestors' first language was gestural and that the vocal version of language was a relatively recent development. My own guess is that vocal language began emerging about 200,000 years ago.

  Roger Fouts

  Cousin, Powerful, Years

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• I live to the rhythm of my country and I cannot remain on the sidelines. I want to be here. I want to be part of it. I want to be a witness. I want to walk arm in arm with it. I want to hear it more and more, to cradle it, to carry it like a medal on my chest. Activism is a constant element in my life, even though afterwards I anguish over not having written 'my own things.' Testimonial literature provides evidence of events that people would like to hide, denounces and therefore is political and part of a country in which everything remains to be done and documented.

  Elena Poniatowska

  Country, People, Political

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• That so many of us find it entirely plausible that a vast network of researchers and health officials and doctors worldwide would willfully harm children for money is evidence of what capitalism is really taking from us. Capitalism has already impoverished the working people who generate wealth for others. And capitalism has already impoverished us culturally, robbing unmarketable art of its value. But when we begin to see the pressures of capitalism as innate laws of human motivation, when we begin to believe that everyone is owned, then we are truly impoverished.

  Eula Biss

  Art, Children, Motivation

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• Do you know what fear stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real.

  Jake Gyllenhaal

  Real, Appearing, Knows

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• Most actors are starving. Most of us are walking around with a flashlight and tweezers looking for evidence. When you have someone that actually writes an acting role, it's rare.

  Dylan McDermott

  Writing, Acting, Roles

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