Critical Thought Quotes

“Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

“The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

“Inside Critics

The critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our "inside critics" have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots.

You might be told by the critics that you're too fat, too old, too young, not intelligent enough, a quitter, not logical, prone to try too many things...
It's all balderdash!

Some elements of these may be true, and it's completely up to you how they affect you. Inside critics are really just trying to protect you. You can:

Learn to dialogue with them.
Give them new jobs.
Turn them into allies.
You can also dismantle/exterminate them.”
― Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK), A Creative Companion: How to Free Your Creative Spirit

“People tend to say "I like independent thinkers but they must think what i want them to think independently”
― rassool jibraeel snyman

“To some people independent thought is heresy and critical thought blasphemy”
― rassool jibraeel snyman

“Some parents whenever their children have an independent thought they wrap them up in warm ignorance and send them to bed”
― rassool jibraeel snyman

“I won’t tell you what to believe, Eragon. It is far better to be taught to think critically and then be allowed to make your own decisions than to have someone else’s notions thrust upon you.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eldest

“Religions, themselves, are (intellectual) blasphemies.”
― Kedar Joshi, Superultramodern Science And Philosophy

“All great people had critics but they still believe in the beauty of their dreams, fully persuaded to stay focused and determined for the realisation
of their dreams.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“Do not say that you're afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience -- that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible -- that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the seconds destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error. In place of your dream of an omniscient automaton, accept the fact that any knowledge man acquires is acquired by his own will and effort, and that that is is his distinction in the universe, that is his nature, his morality, his glory.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? We must not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind [pseudoscience/'woo'], for philosophy-fiction. Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.”
― Peter B. Medawar

“To some people original thought is a medical condition that leads to migraines”
― rassool jibraeel snyman

“The idea that power was an end in itself, rather than a means to provide the security and opportunity necessary for the pursuit of happiness, seemed to him stupid and self-defeating." (about Senator Fulbright)”
― Bill Clinton, My Life

“The public education system did not promote the enlightenment of the individual, but rather suppressed critical thought and neurodiversity. It produced preformatted, standardized, and obedient worker-citizen consumers that are programmed to feed the system that holds them captured, exploited, and enslaved. Silently and collectively, they are sawing the branch of reason on which we are all sitting.”
― Rajinder Jhol, Shine

“I want a complete transformation. I need a new identity. I yearn for a chance to let go of all fear, the negative self-image, the critical thoughts. I want to give up my affliction, shed the things I regret and the outrage at past events, just as a dog shakes water off after a swim.”
― Anoir Ou-Chad, Lemon Twist

“Perhaps the most important thought any human can have is to remember not everyone else thinks like you, best to be diplomatic if possible.”
― C.A.A. Savastano

“Do you listen to the mouths of many or the mind of one?”
― Gary Casling

“If critical analysis of repression is itself inseparable from repression, then surely to think with any efficacy has to be think in some distinctly different way.”
― Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity

“Highly educated = Highly indoctrinated”
― Mishelle Boniface

“With a bored pride; in their own hands a shallow mindless electronic device - it is without doubt - a damning indictment of modern society.”
― sir kristian goldmund aumann

“Hater" and "hate" are used when no critical thought can be formed. We can definitely do better.”
― Darnell Lamont Walker

“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, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I feel more passionate about the teaching side of my job than I have ever been, because it’s so important to convince the younger generation that their ability to question and think is crucial to the future of the world." - 2020 Physics Laureate Andrea Ghez on being a professor.”
― Andrea Ghez, The Astronomy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained