A Quote by Jerry Pournelle

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. — © Jerry Pournelle
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.
Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think
There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
Everything is true; only the opposite is true too; you must believe both equally or be damned.
Libertarianism and communism are equally crazy in opposite ways. Libertarians believe that it is possible to privatize everything without anarchy, while communists believe that it is possible to socialize everything without tyranny.
TV has taken reflection out of the human condition. People didn't use to have a ready answer for everything, whether they knew something about it or not. People think they have to have an answer for everything because the guys on TV have an answer for everything. But it's bullsh**t! Reflection is crucial.
One does not learn anything except by believing something, and -- conversely -- if one doubts everything one learns nothing. On the other hand, believing everything uncritically is the road to disaster. The faculty of doubt is essential. But as I have argued, rational doubt always rests on faith and not vice versa. The relationship between the two cannot be reversed.
Mankind has tried the other two roads to peace - the road of political jealousy and the road of religious bigotry - and found them both equally misleading. Perhaps it will now try the third, the road of scientific truth, the only road on which the passenger is not deceived. Science does not, ostrich-like, bury its head amidst perils and difficulties. It tries to see everything exactly as everything is.
Nothing fortuitous happens in a child's world. There are no accidents. Everything is connected with everything else and everything can be explained by everything else. . . . For a young child everything that happens is a necessity.
My job as a pastor and theologian is to tease out the nature and the necessity of the gospel in meticulous ways, in everything I say, in everything I like. I want desperately for the church in America to rediscover the power and the beauty and the nature and the necessity of the gospel.
I believe there are a lot of questions today that require expert analysis by various agencies: political agencies, foreign ministries, economic agencies and security agencies. We need to assess everything and understand what we can agree on and what the implications will be both for Japan and for Russia so that both the Russian people and the Japanese people come to the conclusion that these compromise solutions are acceptable and are in our countries' interests.
Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.
There are many different kinds of doubt. When we doubt the future, we call it worry. When doubt other people we call is suspicion. When we doubt ourselves we call it inferiority. When we doubt God we call it unbelief. When we doubt what we hear on television we call it intelligence! When we doubt everything we call it cynicism or skepticism.
Doubt everything at least once, even the sentence "Two times two is four."
Doubt everything [...]. Doubt everything at least once. What you decide to keep, you'll be able to be confident of. And what you decide to ditch, you will replace with what your instincts tell you is true.
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