Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.
— Thomas Jefferson
Remarkable Gullibility quotations
Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity.
Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work can be called cowardice. Generosity can be called soft-headedness, and observe : the former is disturbing
Be open minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out.
Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.
I do here in the most solemn and bitter manner curse the Prime Minister of England [sic] for having cumulated all his other betrayals of the national interest and honour, by his last terrible exhibition of dishonour, weakness and gullibility. The depths of infamy which our accurst "love of peace" can lower us are unfathomable.
Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror.
Don't be gullible, use life before it uses you.
Understand there are no free lunches, and for every action you take, there's a reaction.
Don't waste my time- I'm not stupid, and I'm not gullible.
People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.
When emotion supersedes reason ... gullibility must follow.
There's a gullible side to the American people.
They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them.
Normally I would not recommend a book that tells you how to make money in the stock market. Most of these books are aimed at gullible folk, and they usually make much more money for their authors than they do for the investing public.
Fame is proof that the people are gullible.
Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .
We are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and an example of modern credulity is the widespread belief that the Earth is round. The average man can advance not a single reason for thinking that the Earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth century mentality.
The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
Quackery has no friend like gullibility.
An honest government is the childish dream of the gullible men!
Gullibility is the key to all adventures.
The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he who gets the most out of life.
In the end, alchemy, whether it is metallurgical or financial, fails.
A base business can not be transformed into a golden business by tricks of accounting or capital structure. The man claiming to be a financial alchemist may become rich. But gullible investors rather than business achievements will usually be the source of his wealth.
Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.
[Con] men have long known . . . that their job is not to convince skeptics but to enable the gullible to continue to believe what they want to believe.
Some people say that taxes are the price we pay for civilization.
But the runaway taxes of our time are the price we pay for being gullible.
Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything.
It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas . . . If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you . . . On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.
If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you.
The kind of caring that the client-centered therapist desires to achieve is a gullible caring, in which clients are accepted as they say they are, not with a lurking suspicion in the therapist's mind that they may, in fact, be otherwise. This attitude is not stupidity on the therapist's part; it is the kind of attitude that is most likely to lead to trust.
The true meaning of Christmas is actually centuries of gullibility.
A peculiar side of credulity is that it is often joined with a proneness to imposture. The association of believing and lying is not characteristic solely of children. They inability or unwillingness to see things as they are promotes both gullibility and charlatanism.
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about.
The cure for advanced gullibility is to go to sleep and consider matters again the next day.
What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind through the universe? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.
Extreme skepticism and extreme gullibility are two equal ways of not having to think at all. And I don't think I'm the first to say that.
Perhaps I am still very much of an American.
That is to say, na?ve, optimistic, gullible. In the eyes of a European, what am I but an American to the core, an American who exposes his Americanism like a sore. Like it or not, I am a product of this land of plenty, a believer in superabundance, a believer in miracles.
The brilliant Schiller was wrong in his Joan of Arc when he said against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. It is actually by means of the gods that we make our stupidity and gullibility into something ineffable.
Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men for surrendering our 'godly gift' of reason when we cross their mental thresholds?
I am skeptical in principle, gullible in practice.
Swindlers are notoriously gullible.
Vanity is easily duped. Ambition, not.
The public is gullible. ... If [many satirists are] making the same joke, that's the danger. Then there's a solidifying effect and it becomes a truth.
The commies are the only people on earth who think Star Wars will work.
If they're that gullible, maybe we should have held the summit at Atlantic City and let them lose all their missiles playing Keno.
Being myself animated by feelings of affection toward my fellowmen, I am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence of that form of mental degradation which is called gullibility.
We live surrounded by a systematic appeal to a dream world which all mature, scientific reality would reject. We, quite literally, advertise our commitment to immaturity, mendacity and profound gullibility. It is as the hallmark of the culture. And it is justified as being economically indispensable.
Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually, as what they do not comprehend.
The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.