Critical Thinking Quotes

A rich person is just a poor person with a crown and elaborate clothing, and a poor person is just a rich person with a crownless head and ragged clothing.

Zanjabil

Actions & statements made on the basis of critical analysis & discernmentare not the same as divisiveness. Know the difference.

Tur-Ha Ak

Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I would like to believe that logic is questioning your reasoning to reach a conclusion.

Unarine Ramaru

Cynicism, like gullibility, is a symptom of underdeveloped critical faculties.

Jamie Whyte

A great truth wants to be criticized not idolized

Friedrich Nietzsche

A book can tell me anything it wants to, but I sure as shit don't have to believe it.

Tiger Gray

Critical feedback shared in good faith is inherently a constructive dialogue. A “critique,” a term that is both a noun and a verb, represents the systematical application of critical thought, a disciplined method of analysis, expressing of opinions, and rendering judgments.

Kilroy J. Oldster

Critical voices have to care about history. We have to care about the way in which things get controlled in the past because that's when the damage gets done and if we don't keep that historical memory, we will allow them to do it again next time.

Martin Baker

If he had gone to the old school, he was by no means old-school.

David Halberstam

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth.Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery.A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error,for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false.Let no man fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it;for doubt is a testing of belief.The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing;For truth, if it be truth, arises from each testing stronger, more secure.He that would silence doubt is filled with fear;the house of his spirit is built on shifting sands.But he that fears no doubt, and knows its use, is founded on a rock.He shall walk in the light of growing knowledge;the work of his hands shall endure.Therefore let us not fear doubt, but let us rejoice in its help:It is to the wise as a staff to the blind; doubt is the handmaiden of truth.

Robert T. Weston

The search to know has always been characterized by the need to doubt, the need to be critical, including the need to be self-critical.

Gerhard Casper

Some parents whenever their children have an independent thought they wrap them up in warm ignorance and send them to bed

rassool jibraeel snyman

A true survivor is someone who, after 12+ years of being schooled, remains independent in their thinking.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

A question is far more subversive, biblically, than a statement.

Os Guinness

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 and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble.If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones.

Carl Sagan

It takes those who uses telescope of faith to catch a spiritual vision. To see the invisible things of the Spirit you need the eyes of faith. Faith sees beyond the physical eyes. Live and walk by faith. Christianity is a faith walk. The substance and evidence is seen only with the spiritual eyes.

Prince Akwarandu

Watch a man--say, a politician--being interviewed on television, an you are observing a demonstration of what both he and his interrogators learned in school: all questions have answers, and it is a good thing to give an answer even if there is none to give, even if you don't understand the question, even if the question contains erroneous assumptions, even if you are ignorant of the facts required to answer. Have you ever heard a man being interviewed say, "I don't have the faintest idea," or "I don't know enough even to guess," or "I have been asked that question before, but all my answers to it seem to be wrong?" One does not "blame" men, especially if they are politicians, for providing instant answers to all questions. The public requires that they do, since the public has learned that instant answer giving is the most important sign of an educated man.

Neil Postman

If chess has any relationship to film-making, it would be in the way it helps you develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives at a time when an impulsive decision seems very attractive.

Stanley Kubrick

So what? Why should an a priori proof of the libertarian property theory make any difference? Why not engage in aggression anyway?” Why indeed?! But then, why should the proof that 1+1=2 make any difference? One certainly can still act on the belief that 1+1=3. The obvious answer is “because a propositional justification exists for doing one thing, but not for doing another.” But why should we be reasonable, is the next come-back. Again, the answer is obvious. For one, because it would be impossible to argue against it; and further, because the proponent raising this question would already affirm the use of reason in his act of questioning it. This still might not suffice and everyone knows that it would not, for even if the libertarian ethic and argumentative reasoning must be regarded as ultimately justified, this still does not preclude that people will act on the basis of unjustified beliefs either because they don’t know, they don’t care, or they prefer not to know. I fail to see why this should be surprising or make the proof somehow defective.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

A man goes to a foreign country and kills somebody who's not aggressing against him; in a Hawaiian shirt he's a criminal, in a green costume he's a hero who gets a parade and a pension. So that, as a culture, we remain in a state of moral insanity. To point out these contradictions to people in society is to be labeled insane. This is how insane society remains, that anybody who points out logical opposites in the most essential human topic of ethics, is considered to be insane.

Stefan Molyneux

The goal of intellectual life should be to see and understand what is true, not merely to adhere to a prevailing orthodoxy.

Jeffrey Tucker

If there's something you really want to believe, that's what you should question the most.

Penn Jillette

To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.

Charles Darwin

...I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so. Mind you, this isn’t easy. We are so surrounded by tales of the supernatural, by the thunders of the powers to be who attempt with all their might to convince us of the existence of the supernatural, that the strongest among us may feel himself swaying.Something like that happened to me recently. In January 1990, I was lying in a hospital bed one afternoon and my dear wife, Janet, was not with me, but had gone home for a few hours to take care of some necessary chores. I was sleeping, and a finger jabbed at me. I woke, of course, and looked blearily to see who had awakened me and for what purpose.My room, however, had a lock, and the lock was firmly closed and there was a chain across the door too. Sunlight filled the room and it was clearly empty. So were the closet and the bathroom. Rationalist though I am, there was no way in which I could refrain from thinking that some supernatural influence had interfered to tell me that something had happened to Janet (naturally, my ultimate fear). I hesitated for a moment, trying to fight it off, and for anyone but Janet I would have. So I phoned her at home. She answered immediately and said she was perfectly well.Relieved, I hung up the phone and settled down to consider the problem of who or what had poked me. Was it simply a dream, a sensory hallucination? Perhaps, but it had seemed absolutely real. I considered.When I sleep alone, I often wrap myself up in my own arms. I also know that when I am sleeping lightly, my muscles twitch. I assumed my sleeping position and imagined my muscles twitching. It was clear that my own finger had poked into my shoulder and that was it.Now suppose that at the precise moment I had poked myself, Janet, through some utterly meaningless coincidence, had tripped and skinned her knee. And suppose I had called and she had groaned and said, "I just hurt myself".Would I have been able to resist the thought of supernatural interference? I hope so. However, I can't be sure. It's the world we live in. It would corrupt the strongest, and I don't imagine I'm in the strongest.

Isaac Asimov

The people on this planet who end up doing nothing are those who never realize they can't do everything.

Kevin DeYoung

When students learn to wrestle with questions about purpose, audience, and genre, they develop a conceptual view of writing that has lifelong usefulness in any communicative context.

John C. Bean

One of the chief values reading history, this is the author, is its capacity to "provoke renegade thoughts".

Andrew Roberts

Think More Not Less.

Jelani Payne

I'm very depressed how in this country you can be told "That's offensive" as though those two words constitute an argument.

Christopher Hitchens

Most people do not actually know how to think for themselves, and unfortunately that prevents them from even knowing it.

Bryant McGill

To read narrowly and shallowly is to read from a place of ignorance.

Roxane Gay

The best way to destroy the decrepit is to build the glorious.

Stefan Molyneux

To learn that it's easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I believe that we are henceforth incapable of returning to an order of moral life which would take the form of a simple submission to commandments or to an alien or supreme will, even if this will were represented as divine. We must accept as a positive good the critique of ethics and religion that has been undertaken by the school of suspicion. From it we have learned to understand that the commandment that gives death, not life, is a product and projection of our own weakness.

Paul Ricœur

Critical thinking is a necessary and vital skill".~R. Alan Woods [2012]

R. Alan Woods

If everyone could learn how to read books properly and how to use them as effective tools for daily living, the facilities of colleges could easily go out of existence without any loss to society.' -From a speech by the president of Mount Holyoke College, as reported in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, May 13, 1938

Francis Beauchesne Thornton

Our brains tread a tightrope between learning too much from the past and incorporating too much new information from the present. The ability to walk this line – to adjust to the demands of different environments and modalities – is one of human cognition's most astonishing traits. Artificial intelligence has yet to come anywhere close.

Eli Pariser

On the way from mythology to logistics thought has lost the element of self-reflection and today machinery disables men even as it nurtures them.

Theodor W. Adorno

Critical Thinking has the potential to be a deeply creative process.

Pearl Zhu

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

Christopher Hitchens

No feeling is wrong. You have the right to your feelings. However, you do not need to wallow in them, and you do not have the right to act them out. The world hasn't suddenly become your punching bag or litter tray.

Anna Valdiserri

Social conditioning, accompanied by moral and mental constraints, now serve to render the mediocre mind nearly incapable of unbiased assessment.

Justin K. McFarlane Beau

When you go with first principles, a giant light goes off in what you think is a city and turns out to be an insane asylum.

Stefan Molyneux

Oversimplifying is the first grave mistake we make when confronted by complexity; overconfidence is the second. And there is a third: based on our overconfidence in our oversimplified conclusions, we overreact.

Ted Cadsby

The secret to discovery is to never believe existing facts.

Bryant McGill

No special academic expertise is required for insight into the Orwellian use of language, only clear thinking and common sense.

Peter Slezak

You must be able to say "I understand," before you can say "I agree," or "I disagree," or "I suspend judgment.

Mortimer J. Adler

P33- Oppression is domesticating. Gravest obstacle to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings consciousness.

Paulo Freire

One of the major differences I see in the political climate today is that there is less collective support for coming to critical consciousness – in communities, in institutions, among friends.

Bell Hooks

SOSTRATUS: Observe then your injustice! You punish us who are but the slaves of Clotho's bidding, and reward these, who do but minister to another's beneficence. For it will never be said that it was in our power to gainsay the irresistible ordinances of Fate?MINOS: Ah, Sostratus; look closely enough, and you will find plenty of inconsistencies besides these. However, I see you are no common pirate, but a philosopher in your way; so much you have gained by your questions. Let him go, Hermes; he shall not be punished after that. But mind, Sostratus, you must not put it into other people's heads to ask questions of this kind.

Lucian of Samosata

Hippasus’ proof—or at least Nico’s retelling of it—was really so simple that when he finished sketching it out, I wasn’t even aware that we had actually proven anything. Nico paused for a few minutes to let us mull it over.It was Peter who broke the silence, “I’m not sure I understand what we have done.”Nico seemed to be expecting such a response. “Step back and examine the proof; in fact, you should try and do this with every proof you see or have to work out for yourself. ..."He again waited for his words to sink in, and it began to make sense for me. All my mathematics teachers (other than Bauji and Nico) always seemed to evade this part of their responsibility. They had been content to merely write out a proof on the blackboard and carry on, seemingly without concern for what the proof meant and what it told us.“But you should not stop here. Even when you have understood a proof, and I hope you have indeed understood this proof, ask yourself the next question, the obvious one, but as critical: So what? Or, why are we proving this? What is the point? What is the context? How does it relate to us? To answer these questions we have to step back a little. Let me show you—it’s really quite delightful.” Now there was excitement in Nico’s voice.

Gaurav Suri

The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.

Eric Hoffer

Complex thinkers attempt to extend to others the same self-forgiving bias that they offer themselves.

Ted Cadsby

Trust your instincts, know what you want, and believe in your ability to achieve it. Rules and conventions are important for schools, businesses, and society in general, but you should never follow them blindly.

Biz Stone

But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.

Carl Sagan

Many things in this period have been hard to bear, or hard to take seriously. My own profession went into a protracted swoon during the Reagan-Bush-Thatcher decade, and shows scant sign of recovering a critical faculty—or indeed any faculty whatever, unless it is one of induced enthusiasm for a plausible consensus President. (We shall see whether it counts as progress for the same parrots to learn a new word.) And my own cohort, the left, shared in the general dispiriting move towards apolitical, atonal postmodernism. Regarding something magnificent, like the long-overdue and still endangered South African revolution (a jagged fit in the supposedly smooth pattern of axiomatic progress), one could see that Ariadne’s thread had a robust reddish tinge, and that potential citizens had not all deconstructed themselves into Xhosa, Zulu, Cape Coloured or ‘Eurocentric’; had in other words resisted the sectarian lesson that the masters of apartheid tried to teach them. Elsewhere, though, it seemed all at once as if competitive solipsism was the signifier of the ‘radical’; a stress on the salience not even of the individual, but of the trait, and from that atomization into the lump of the category. Surely one thing to be learned from the lapsed totalitarian system was the unwholesome relationship between the cult of the masses and the adoration of the supreme personality. Yet introspective voyaging seemed to coexist with dull group-think wherever one peered about among the formerly ‘committ

Christopher Hitchens

I think the influence of books is neither direct and more predictable. Books themselves are too unruly, and so are readers.

Maureen Corrigan

Good art is always dangerous, always open-ended. Once you put it out in the world you lose control of it; people will fit it into their minds in all sorts of different ways.

Greil Marcus

Even if a poem is beautiful and memorable, it’s not like an advertising jingle or propaganda, which attempt to convince and control. Poems seek to confuse, disabuse, enlarge understanding, and make people ask questions and think for themselves.

Rachel Zucker

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Critical Thinking Quotes

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