“Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Walt Whitman 181
American poet, essayist and journalist 1819–1892Related quotes
From the Preface to the 1855 edition of <i>Leaves of Grass</i>
or try (and fail) to remember the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say.
The Superstition of Divorce (1920)
“Black women all over the world should re-unite and re-examine the way history has portrayed us.”
Source: On how Black women should challenge historical representations (as quoted in “Buchi Emecheta: Nigerian author who championed girls dies aged 72” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38757048 in BBC News in BBC News; 2017 Jan 26)
Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Chindi (2002), Chapter 36 (p. 487)
1780s, Letter to Peter Carr (1787)
Context: You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, etc. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities?
Real Time with Bill Maher
Source: "On the poor and the rich" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKe7XNTWTUc&feature=PlayList&p=159B6F88FE3D7D74&playnext_from=PL&index=44
