61 Quotes About Critical Thinking

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

There is a magnificent, beautiful, wonderful painting in front of you! It is intricate, detailed, a painstaking labor of devotion and love! The colors are like no other, they swim and leap, they trickle and embellish! And yet you choose to fixate your eyes on the small fly which has landed on it! Why do you do such a thing? C. Joybell C.

Religion has the capacity to silence critical thinking and create blindness in entire groups of people. It can infect the minds of followers so completely as to allow the most egregious sexual acts against children and others to go unchallenged for centuries. Darrel Ray

The spread of secondary and latterly of 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 Medawar

Scientists are aware that all the lab-rat tests in the world, once compiled, can tell us only how lab rats act when tested, and that is how we must begin to view school: all that you can learn in a school classroom is what goes on inside a school classroom. Anne Elizabeth Moore

We hear so often that we must read but what is more important and often not advised is to always think and question what we read. Reading, retaining and repeating is often called education. Wisdom is when we can read, question, adapt and apply what is relevant to the time and space in which we exist. Lennox D.Lampkin

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined?.. Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side?.. And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?.. Is not the great defect of our education today---a defect traceable through all the disquieting symptoms of trouble that I have mentioned---that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils "subjects, " we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning. . Dorothy L. Sayers

If you don't understand how the world works, then everything is a mystery to you. If everything is magical and mysterious, then you really don't work on logic anymore. Then, everything is all about belief. Joy Reidenberg

...Society needs to open its collective mind to all ideas and ideologies. It needs to give its people the chance to listen to the opinions of others, and then examine them critically instead of rejecting them prematurely. Such a creative dialogue based on positive critical thinking can enhance and develop ideas. Raif Badawi

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

Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die. Frank Herbert

Both [P. T.] Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The remark has worldwide application. But the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking. Carl Sagan

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

Think independently and critically, but never forget to think with understanding and love. Debasish Mridha

Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart. Edward Abbey

You have a brain and mind of your own. Use it, and reach your own decisions. Napoleon Hill

Thought assists memory in enabling it to order the material it has assembled. So that in a systematically ordered memory every idea is individually followed by all conclusions it entails. Jan Potocki

It's important to realize that sometimes the information you need is hidden behind the information available. Anne Elizabeth Moore

...when we cease asking questions, when we stop being self-critical, and when we no longer engage with others, then we surrender our ability to grow--to progress. Let's begin the conversation. Mehdi Ghafourifar

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

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

Reflective learning provokes critical thinking, enabling us to pose relevant questions, revealing the profound oceans of ignorance that surround even the most learned scholars in our fields of modern knowledge, invoking us to be active participants in the crusade for equality, representation, and social justice. Martin Guevara Urbina

One of the most important things one can do in life is to brutally question every single thing you are taught. Bryant McGill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. Unknown

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

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

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

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

It's ok to follow a leader with a strong positive agenda, but by no means should you forget to take your critical thinking with you. Unknown

Think More Not Less. Jelani Payne

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

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

..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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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