Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

It could be – and it has been argued, in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don’t like it – that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.

When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won’t tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, ‚Well, you know: It’s secret.‘

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Solutions are not the answer.

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.

People see things differently and remember things differently. It’s why if somebody robs a liquor store and there are four witnesses they’ll often disagree.

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

If you judge, investigate.

The authority you establish must emerge naturally from your character, from the particular strengths you possess.

People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.

I have never kept diaries. I just remember a lot and am more self-centered than most people.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn’t let them into the family brokerage business.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

The only possible effect one can have on the world is through unpopular ideas.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility.

The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilization.

There is no sin except stupidity.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.

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

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

There is no memory or retentive faculty based on lasting impression. What we designate as memory is but increased responsiveness to repeated stimuli.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

In the ’50s, too many women, even though they were very smart, they tried to make the man feel that he was brainier. It was a sad thing.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

We do not know where to look, or what to look for, when something is memorized. We do not know what it means, or what change there is in the nervous system, when a fact is learned. This is a very important problem which has not been solved at all.

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

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‚we.‘

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

Chinese people need to be controlled; otherwise, they will do whatever they want.

In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

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

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.