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Top 25 William Kingdon Clifford Quotes (2025 Update)

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey.”

1. “There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs.”

2. “The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it – the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.”

3. “If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it – the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide.”

4. “Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.”

5. “The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.”

6. “We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that.”

7. “When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest.”

8. “If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.”

9. “No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.”

10. “All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

11. “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions.”

12. “A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician, who will not tell you that he found ready made his discovery or poem or picture – that it came to him from outside, and that he did not consciously create it from within.”

13. “There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician, who will not tell you that he found ready made his discovery or poem or picture – that it came to him from outside, and that he did not consciously create it from within.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart.”

14. “He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances.”

15. “To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life.”

16. “An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation.”

17. “This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race.”

18. “Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn.”

19. “We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.”

20. “Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “Thought is powerless, except it make something outside of itself: the thought which conquers the world is not contemplative but active.”

21. “Thought is powerless, except it make something outside of itself: the thought which conquers the world is not contemplative but active.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future.”

22. “If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “An atom must be at least as complex as a grand piano.”

23. “An atom must be at least as complex as a grand piano.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.”

24. “Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “It is hardly in human nature that a man should quite accurately gauge the limits of his own insight; but it is the duty of those who profit by his work to consider carefully where he may have been carried beyond it.”

25. “It is hardly in human nature that a man should quite accurately gauge the limits of his own insight; but it is the duty of those who profit by his work to consider carefully where he may have been carried beyond it.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

William Kingdon Clifford Quote: “The scientific discovery appears first as the hypothesis of an analogy; and science tends to become independent of the hypothesis.”

26. “The scientific discovery appears first as the hypothesis of an analogy; and science tends to become independent of the hypothesis.”

— William Kingdon Clifford

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