“He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 363

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity." by Ambrose Bierce?

Ambrose Bierce 204

American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabu… 1842–1914

Related quotes

“So in this way of writing without thinking,
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.”

Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset (1536–1608) English politician and poet

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset "On Mr Edward Howard, upon his British Princes"; cited from Geoffrey Grigson (ed.) The Oxford Book of Satirical Verse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980) p. 74
Misattributed

“He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

“Believe me, nurse, the difficulty of beginning will be nothing to the difficulty of knowing how to stop.”

Agatha Christie book Murder in Mesopotamia

Dr Reilly
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
Context: Believe me, nurse, the difficulty of beginning will be nothing to the difficulty of knowing how to stop. At least that's the way it is with me when I have to make a speech. Someone's got to catch hold of my coat-tails and pull me down by main force.

“He who comes from hell, easily find the solution to many difficulties.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Chi proviene dall'inferno trova facilmente la soluzione a molte difficoltà.
Source: prevale.net

“[The empiricist] thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.”

George Santayana book Scepticism and Animal Faith

"Objections to Belief in Substance", p. 201
Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923)

“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

“The more a person believes he’s free to think, the more I believe he’s a slave of his thoughts”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

“God has not the slightest difficulty in bringing to a fullness of creation the person who is in some way incomplete and recognises this. The problem is with those who think that they are complete, and that creation is, at least in their case, finished.”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), " The man blind from birth and the Creator's subversion of sin http://girardianlectionary.net/res/fbr_ch-1_john9.htm", p. 16-17.

“Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Why I Am An Agnostic (1929)
Context: An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith.

“He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

“He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Ambrose Bierce 204

Related quotes

Related topics