There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Believing everything or doubting everything both allow you to avoid thinking.
- In plain terms
- Accepting all or rejecting all saves you from doing the work of thinking.
- What can you take from it?
- True thinking requires evaluating claims rather than accepting or rejecting them all.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Do you accept or reject without thinking?
- What stops you from thinking harder?
Another view
Sometimes blind trust or skepticism is a safe default in uncertain times.
More from Alfred Korzybski
Our rulers: politicians, 'diplomats', bankers, priests of every description, economists, lawyers, etc. and the majority of teachers ... ignorant of modern scie…
Permalink to quote #10 God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't. (Korzybski states that it is not his quote in S&S)
Permalink to quote #12 Bankers, priests, lawyers,... politicians, [and news media] constitute one class [of our rulers] and work together. They do not produce any values but manipula…
Permalink to quote #9
Related quotes
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
Georg Christoph LichtenbergGeorg Christoph Lichtenberg quote #119 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…
Carl SaganCarl Sagan quote #1 As I argued in Beloved Son, a book about my son Brian and the subject of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the methods of…
Steve AllenSteve Allen quote #13