The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

Many sophisticated, intelligent people lack wisdom and common sense.

We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

Solutions are not the answer.

K to 12 is partly about babysitting the kids so the parents can do other things.

The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.

Only the aspirants for president are fool enough to believe what they read in the newspapers.

I don’t know that my schooling was conducive to wild ideas and creativity, but it gave me discipline, drive. They taught me how to think. I really know how to think.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.

There is always an easy solution to every problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it – aliens.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

The major networks, the cable networks, they’re being prosecutors. They’re judges and jurors and executioners. Well, c’mon, that’s ridiculous. But they’re doing it.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

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.

In the long run, your human capital is your main base of competition. Your leading indicator of where you’re going to be 20 years from now is how well you’re doing in your education system.

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

It has not yet become obvious to me that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

I can’t deal with someone wanting to take a relationship backward or needing space or cheating on you. It’s a conscious thing; it’s a common-sense thing.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

But your questions, which are unanswerable without exception, all spring from the same erroneous thinking.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

My biggest skill is common sense. I understand life.

Faith… must be enforced by reason… when faith becomes blind it dies.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.