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He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Understanding and belief often require embracing the unknown and incomprehensible aspects of life.

This quote suggests that a person who insists on only believing what they can completely understand is likely either very intelligent or possesses a very simplistic belief system. It highlights the importance of accepting uncertainties and complexities in faith and understanding, advocating for a broader mindset that allows for beliefs beyond immediate comprehension.

Themes

BeliefUnderstandingFaithPhilosophyComplexity

In practice

Example use cases

During a lecture on the nature of faith and reason, this quote could be used to illustrate the relationship between belief and understanding.

More from Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The whole life lies in the verb seeing.
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Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
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The mineral world is a much more supple and mobile world than could be imagined by the science of the ancients. Vaguely analogous to the metamorphoses of living creatures, there occurs in the most solid rocks, as we now know, perpetual transformation of a mineral species.
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We may, perhaps, imagine that the creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues still more magnificently, and at the highest levels of the world.
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Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.
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If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.
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