Critical Thinking Quotes

• Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.

  George Carlin

  Running, Smart, Thinking

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• Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.

  Adrienne Rich

  Strong Women, Hard Work, Mean

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• It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical

  Boris Yeltsin

  Thinking, Important, Unorthodox

  Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1990). “Against the grain: an autobiography”, Simon & Schuster

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• It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

  Aristotle

  Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

  Attributed to Aristotle in "Religion and the Pursuit of Truth" by Lowell Lindsay Bennion, p. 52, 1959.

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• When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.

  Stephen King

  Kings, Book, Writing

  "Beyond cuts: the many roles of a writer's editor" by Nell Frizzell, www.theguardian.com. March 12, 2014.

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• The Santa myth is one of the most effective means ever devised for intimidating children, eroding their self- esteem, twisting their behavior, warping their values, and slowing their development of critical thinking skills.

  Tom Flynn

  Children, Self Esteem, Mean

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• The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Education, Teacher, Teaching

  Martin Luther King (1992). “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr”, p.124, Univ of California Press

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• Imagination is more important than knowledge.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Positive, Leadership

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.32, St. Martin's Press

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

  Christopher Hitchens

  Lying, Independent, Thinking

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.3, Basic Books

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• I wish I were dumber so I could be more certain about my opinions. It looks fun.

  Scott Adams

  Funny, Stupidity, Dumb

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• If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.

  George S. Patton

  Motivational, Business, Military

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• We are approaching a new age of synthesis. Knowledge cannot be merely a degree or a skill... it demands a broader vision, capabilities in critical thinking and logical deduction without which we cannot have constructive progress.

  Li Ka-shing

  Inspirational, Business, Knowledge

  "Financial Expert Witness Communication: A Practical Guide to Reporting and Testimony". Book by Bradley J. Preber (p. 81), May 9, 2014.

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• The most fundamental attack on freedom is the attack on critical thinking skills.

  Travis Nichols

  Thinking, Skills, Fundamentals

  "Scratches in the Temple Wall - An Interview with Travis Nichols". Interview with Paul Killebrew, logger.believermag.com. July 29, 2013.

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• If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity

  Josh Lanyon

  Thinking, Objectivity, Skills

  Josh Lanyon (2011). “Come Unto These Yellow Sands”, p.21, Samhain Publishing

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• Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

  Henry Ford

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

  The High School Teacher, Vol. XI, 1935.

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• Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.

  Peter Singer

  Philosophy, Believe, Thinking

  Peter Singer (1986). “Applied Ethics”, p.225, Oxford University Press, USA

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• The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Clever, Numbers, Judging

  1779 Mr Puff.The Critic, act 1, sc.2.

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• History can come in handy. If you were born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, you might easily accept whatever the government tells you. But knowing a bit of history--while it would not absolutely prove the government was lying in a given instance--might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth.

  Howard Zinn

  Lying, Past, Government

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• It is important for this country to make its people so obsessed with their own liberal individualism that they do not have time to think about a world larger than self.

  Bell Hooks

  Country, Thinking, Self

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• A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Devil, Poet, Apostles

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• Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system.

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Believe, Agreement, Belief

  "The Four Agreements". Book by Miguel Angel Ruiz, 1997.

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• 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

  Differences, Support, Community

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• The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Inspirational, Education, Travel

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• Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.97, Chartwell

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• It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.

  Rene Descartes

  Inspirational, Education, Teaching

  "Discourse on the Method". Book by Rene Descartes (Part 1), 1637.

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