People who take joy and satisfaction from church membership seem to get this satisfaction, in my observation, from two sources: one, they feel that the basic doctrines of the church and the philosophy of life that flow from it are valuable in their lives; second, they enjoy the fellowship, mutual support, and security that the local congregation usually offers. These reasons, or maybe even either one of them by itself, are probably reason enough for continued faithfulness. All the crap, ultimately, is not enough for them to deny themselves what they consider real blessings. I think you have to ask yourself what your balance sheet looks like on these scores.

—Anonymous

I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys. ... Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting.

—Boyd K. Packer, to Michael Quinn (Faithful History, p. 103)

Despite a succession of crushing court victories which have kept ‘Creation Science’ out of publicly funded classrooms, there is a steady quiet pressure which has kept explicit Darwinism out of widely sold textbooks, too. Not all of this can be put down to the malign influence of American Protestantism. As much, it seems to me, comes from the profoundly democratic and capitalist nature of America, which holds that everyone has a right to believe what pleases them, especially if there is money to be made out of this belief. The love of truth is the weakest of all human passions, said A. E. Housman, and it does not do much for the popularity of evolutionary biology to point out that it is true.

—Andrew Brown, The Darwin Wars, p. 197

I have often mentioned that fifteen years of monthly columns have brought me an enormous correspondence from nonprofessionals about all aspects of science. From sheer volume, I obtain a pretty good sense of strengths and weaknesses in public perceptions. I have found that one common misconception surpasses all others. People will write, telling me that they have developed a revolutionary theory, one that will expand the boundaries of science. These theories, usually described in several pages of single-spaced typescript, are speculations about the deepest ultimate questions we can ask—what is the nature of life? the origin of the universe? the beginning of time?

But thoughts are cheap. Any person of intelligence can devise his half dozen before breakfast. Scientists can also spin out ideas about ultimates. We don’t (or, rather, we confine them to our private thoughts) because we cannot devise ways to test them, to decide whether they are right or wrong. What good to science is a lovely idea that cannot, as a matter of principle, ever be affirmed or denied?

—Stephen Jay Gould, “Justice Scalia’s Misunderstanding”
Bully for Brontosaurus, p. 454

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic. His opinions are determined not by his reason—‘the bulk of mankind’ says Swift ‘is as well qualified for flying as for thinking’—but by his passions; and the faintest of all human passions is the love of truth. He believes that the text of ancient authors is generally sound, not because he has acquainted himself with the elements of the problem, but because he would feel uncomfortable if he did not believe it; just as he believes, on the same cogent evidence, that he is a fine fellow, and that he will rise again from the dead.

—A.E. Housman, Introduction to Astronomicon of Manlius, p. 43