51 Quotes About Independent Thought

People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take. Emma Goldman

Considering he was neither priest nor scholar, the young man gave sensible, thoughtful replies -- the more so, perhaps, for being untrained, for he had not learned what he should believe or should not believe. Present a statement to him in flagrant contradiction to all Christian doctrine and he could be persuaded to agree on its good sense, unless he remembered it was the sort of thing of which pyres are made for the incautious. Iain Pears

Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. And Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And even bigger than Japan... Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. Don't ever surrender yourself ― not to Japan, not to anything. You may think that what you're doing is for the sake of the nation, but let something take possession of you like that, and all you do is bring it down. Unknown

Keep away from the kinship of the individuals who continually ask and examine the imperfections of others. Genereux Philip

Do you know, the only people I can have a conversation with are the Jews? At least when they quote scripture at you they are not merely repeating something some priest has babbled in their ear. They have the great merit of disagreeing with nearly everything I say. In fact, they disagree with almost everything they say themselves. And most importantly, they don't think that shouting strengthens their argument. . Iain Pears

If no one had ever challenged religious authority, there’d be no democracy, no public schools, women’s rights, improvements to science and medicine, evolution of slavery and no laws against child abuse or spousal abuse. I was afraid to challenge my religious beliefs because that was the basis of creation–mine anyway. I was afraid to question the Bible or anything in it, and when I did, that’s when I became involved with PFLAG and realized that my son was a perfectly normal human being and there was nothing for God to heal because Bobby was perfect just the way he was. Mary Griffith

Seven Ways To Get Ahead in Business:1. Be forward thinking 2. Be inventive, and daring3. Do the right thing4. Be honest and straight forward5. Be willing to change, to learn, to grow6. Work hard and be yourself7. Lead by example Germany Kent

You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney, or a hypocritical parson. Robert G. Ingersoll

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police .. yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. . Winston S. Churchill

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

Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. Albert Einstein

On the road to success there is absolutely no room for criticism of self or others. Insecurity and fear masquerade as jealousy and judgment. Finding faults in others wastes time as we attempt to remove the bricks from other people’s foundations — time that could be better spent building our own. And worrying about what other people think about us also wastes the time that could be better spent expanding upon what we have built. . Alaric Hutchinson

Independence can neither be created nor destroyed just like energy! It can only be transferred from a fearless, resilient, intelligent & visionary "form" to another, regardless of what gender you are born with. It's the energy that seeks to free your mind. Vishwanath S J

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

It’s just another stop on the curvy roadthe final encounterfor the man who has liveddeath is the answer. Mie Hansson

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I shall have my lasso, I shall lead the course; I recognize it’s time to mount a different horse. Mie Hansson

It turns out that indecision is a path itself; but figuratively, a vertical path - up or down - meaning it isn't always a fruitless path. One is forgotten, but the other is glorified. To be what they call 'middle-of-the-road' in most cases just means you have a hard time figuring out who between options is dumber. So quite often those who refused to decide were, after all, the bold individuals, the influential ones, the creative ones, those who snatched their own authority. . Criss Jami

Be tough minded but tenderhearted. Unknown

He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library. Milan Kundera

The thought of being completely dependent disturbs people till the moment their eyes are opened to reality. Auliq Ice

Rich or poor it’s nice to have money Alan Sheinwald

His early failure had released him from any felt obligation to think along institutional lines and his thoughts were already independent to a degree few people are familiar with. He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. He came to see his early failure as a lucky break, an accidental escape from a trap that had been set for him, and he was very trap-wary about institutional truths for the remainder of his time. Robert M. Pirsig

Anxiety, and the physical symptoms it causes, is merely fog along the path of independence and discovery. Charles F. Glassman

At the end of the day, ” he continued, “although many believe in fate, it’s those who go through life with independent thought alone who are the strongest. Unknown

Richard Wright and his Negro intellectual colleagues never realized the plain truth that no one in the United States understood the revolutionary potential of the Negro better than the Negro's white radical allies. They understood it instinctively, and revolutionary theory had little to do with it. What Wright could not see was that what the Negro's allies feared most of all was that this sleeping, dream-walking black giant might wake up and direct the revolution all by himself, relegating his white allies to a humiliating second-class status. The negro's allies were not about to tell the Negro anything that might place him on the path to greater power and independence in the revolutionary movement than they themselves had. The rules of the power game meant that unless the American Negro taught himself the profound implications of his own revolutionary significance in America, it would never be taught to him by anybody else. Unless the Negro intellectuals understood that in pursuit of this self-understanding, they would have to make their own rules, by and for themselves, nationalism would forever remain--as it was for Wright-- "a bewildering and vexing question. Harold Cruse

The only people we want to blame are ourselves, because it will be ourselves that we rely upon. Markus Zusak

Culture is a virus. It distorts your view of the world and destroys your capacity to think independently. Merlyn Gabriel Miller

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

It is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions. Neil Postman

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking... Leo Tolstoy

The undeniable paradox of human existence is that a person seeks closeness with other people while protecting his or her sanctified right of privacy. Each person must carefully guard their personal identity in order to give their life a unique purposefulness. Loving other people and nature is not mutually exclusive of a person maintaining independence of thought and action. A person need not surrender his or her own pursuit of personal excellence when maintaining a respectful and reciprocal relationship with a life mate. . Kilroy J. Oldster

It is impossible to understand how millions and millions of people all obey a sickly collection of gentlemen that call themselves 'Government! ' The word, I expect, frightens people. It is a form of planetary hypnosis, and very unhealthy."" It has been going on for years, " I said. "And it only occurred to relatively few to disobey and make what they call revolutions. If they won their revolutions, which they occasionally did, they made more governments, sometimes more cruel and stupid than the last."" Men are very difficult to understand, " said Carmella. "Let's hope they all freeze to death. I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen, and parliaments. . Leonora Carrington

Silence. Montag sat like a carved white stone. The echo of the final hammer on his skull died slowly away into the black cavern where Faber waited for the echoes to subside. And then when the startled dust had settled down about Montag's mind, Faber began, softly, "All right, he's had his say. You must take it in. I'll say my say, too, in the next hours. And you'll take it in. And you'll try to judge them and make your decisions as to which way to jump, or fall. But I want it to be your decision, not mine, and not the Captain's. But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you now to know with which ear you'll listen. Ray Bradbury

To some people independent though is heresy and critical thought blasphemy Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

The cliche about prison life is that I am actually integrated into it, ruined by it, when my accommodation to it is so overwhelming that I can no longer stand or even imagine freedom, life outside prison, so that my release brings about a total psychic breakdown, or at least gives rise to a longing for the lost safety of prison life. The actual dialectic of prison life, however, is somewhat more refined. Prison in effect destroys me, attains a total hold over me, precisely when I do not fully consent to the fact that I am in prison but maintain a kind of inner distance towards it, stick to the illusion that ‘real life is elsewhere’ and indulge all the time in daydreaming about life outside, about nice things that are waiting for me after my release or escape. I thereby get caught in the vicious cycle of fantasy, so that when, eventually, I am released, the grotesque discord between fantasy and reality breaks me down. The only true solution is therefore fully to accept the rules of prison life and then, within the universe governed by these rules, to work out a way to beat them. In short, inner distance and daydreaming about Life Elsewhere in effect enchain me to prison, whereas full acceptance of the fact that I am really there, bound by prison rules, opens up a space for true hope. Unknown

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

What is a genius? A person who demands little to nothing from others, but is often found extremely difficult to have around. Criss Jami

Thinking for yourself and making your own decisions can be frightening. Letting go of other people’s expectations can leave you feeling empty for a time. And yet seeing yourself as an independent adult who can stand up for your own choices frees you to accept yourself as you are. Ellen Bass

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think. Emma Goldman