
Source: Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002), p. 176
Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 29
Source: Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002), p. 176
“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you have only one idea.”
Propos sur le Religion no. 74 (1938), under the pen name Alain.
Alternate translation: “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it's the only one we have.” IZQuotes https://izquotes.com/quote/%C3%A9mile-chartier/nothing-is-more-dangerous-than-an-idea-when-you-have-only-one-idea-390165 (retrieved 10/30/18).
Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 51
Context: Campus speech codes, that folly of the navel-gazing left, have increased the appeal of the right. Ideas must confront ideas. When hurt feelings and bruised egos are more important than the unfettered life of the mind, the universities have committed suicide.
Speech at a farewell function for outgoing United States Ambassador David Lyon, 15 July 2005 (excerpts)
Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 12, p. 203
As quoted in "Stray Questions for: David Eagleman" by Blake Wilson in The New York Times (10 July 2009) http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/stray-questions-for-david-eagleman/
Context: Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I’m hoping to define a new position — one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story.
1970s
Source: Remarks to the Liaison Committee with the Trades Union Congress at Congress House (20 January 1975), quoted in Barbara Castle, The Castle Diaries, 1974–76 (1980), pp. 284-285