Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how unwavering belief can lead to contradictions and negative outcomes.
Richard P. Feynman highlights the dangers of dogmatic belief systems where individuals, despite their good intentions, become so consumed by their convictions that they disregard evidence and even contradict their beliefs. This inflexible adherence to a set of ideas can lead to significant issues as those individuals may attempt to impose their views on others while acting against the very principles they espouse.
In practice
During a debate on climate change, I could use this quote to emphasize the importance of open-mindedness.
The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?
We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.
I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.
Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.
If God is not sovereign, God is not God.
For this equilibrium now in sight, let us trust that mankind, as it has occurred in the greatest periods of its past, will find for itself a new code of ethics, common to all, made of tolerance, of courage, and of faith in the Spirit of men.
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans.
Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages much sooner than savages become civilized by means of religion and civil government.
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