Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be
Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Topic
The strand here is Hemingway's test: the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. Clifford insists that belief accepted on insufficient evidence is a stolen pleasure. Goethe pairs ideal and real in a formula that serves as the collection's thesis: confusion of the two is never unpunished. Bennett's observation that we have always had all the time there is functions as a corrective rather than a consolation. Spurgeon: you get what you expect. The collection is unsentimental about the gap between what we wish were true and what observably is. These quotes are for people who prefer to be accurate rather than comfortable, and who have noticed that reality is generally more interesting than their expectations of it.
Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is - infinite
It is wrong always, everywhere and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea.