Doctrine quotes
534 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"[Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood."
"They know that it is human nature to take up causes whereby a man may oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly. ... Hence they have had no trouble in finding men who would preach the damnability and heresy of the new doctrine from the very pulpit."
"I tell you the solemn truth, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so difficult to accept for a working proposition as any one of the axioms of physics."
"Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm."
"The doctrine of equality! ... But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice ... "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal"."
"There is no such way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd Doctrines, as to guard them round about with Legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefin'd Words."
"For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey."
"I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone."
"Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations."
"Zeno first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defence against a knave."
"The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever poured forth by the genius of man."
"Nothing can be more hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by utility or by the doctrine of final causes."
"Though a simple book can be written on selected topics, the central doctrines of economics are not simple and cannot be made so."
"[The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored."
"We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt."
"It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters, that whoever can speak can sing. So, probably, every man is eloquent once in his life. Our temperaments differ in capacity of heat, or"
"There is genius as well in virtue as in intellect. 'Tis the doctrine of faith over works."
"The doctrine of Necessity or Destiny is the doctrine of Toleration."
"The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies, and falsehoods."
"What we need to be assured of is not that we possess an excellent system of doctrine and ritual, but that the gift of the Holy Spirit is a reality."
