Gullibility Quotes
22 quotes
"And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too."
"Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."
"Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print."
"It's called the Infinity Effect."
"Every word that comes after "And the Lord told me. . . “is a pious lie"
"You can't believe everything people tell you - not even if those people are your own brain."
"Both [P. T.] Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The remark has worldwide application. But the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking."
Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
"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."
"That the earth in its course stood still; that a she-ass spoke; that a storm was quieted by a word, we do not believe, and we shall never again believe."
"A coat of paint and a quote of words both make cosmetic differences."
"Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson isn't just hearing the words, but putting it into practice by experimenting with it and finding its truth for yourself instead of taking someone else’s word for it."
"The tendency to trust easily anyone gives way to a certain vulnerability."
"Face after face contorted in hate, men, women, children. Whatever lies had been voiced against me had clearly gained near-universal acceptance. I knew then that, regardless of what transpired here, my home was now lost to me. It wasn’t just that these people would never accept me, more that I would never forgive their gullibility."
"Nearly everyday life leans over and says, ‘Come on down!’ But standing at the bottom looking up, it’s finally dawned on me that it’s not these invitations that have dug this hole. Rather, it’s the fact that I accepted them."
"We have known for a long time that Prince Charles' empty sails are so rigged as to be swelled by any passing waft or breeze of crankiness and cant. He fell for the fake anthropologist Laurens van der Post. He was bowled over by the charms of homeopathic medicine. He has been believably reported as saying that plants do better if you talk to them in a soothing and encouraging way."
"I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has."
"He was in awe of the thirst that people had for someone to tell them that everything was going to be all right. He marveled at the gullibility and vulnerability of his fellow humans. No wonder the churches called them sheep. They were woolly-headed pack animals being herded around for the benefit of whoever knew how to control the dogs."
"No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
"Sarcasm will make your tits fall off."
"Gullibility is a knife at the throat of civilization."
"Fame is proof that people are gullible."
"You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her."