William Kingdon Clifford

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

“Conscience is the voice of Man, ingrained into our heart, commanding us to work for Man.”

“I hold that in the physical world nothing else takes place but this variation of the curvature of space.”

“Geometry is a physical science.”

“We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not know is like what we do know.”

“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... the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.”

“Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer.”

“Scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.”

“No belief, however trifling it may seem, and however sacred it may seem, is truly a private matter which concerns only the man who holds it.”

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

“There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician, who will not tell you that he found his discovery or his poem or his picture waiting for him.”

“The universe consists entirely of mind-stuff.”

“Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age.”