I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.

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.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: ‚Oh, that’s just the way things are done around here.‘ Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

I often advocate that we look at many sides of an issue, walk in someone else’s shoes, and identify and reject false choices.

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

If you judge, investigate.

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

Information is not knowledge.

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

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

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

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

Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.

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

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

Dialogue means debates and everyone’s point of view.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

Solutions are not the answer.

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

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.

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.

The Roman Curia has its defects, but it seems to me that people often overemphasize its defects and talk too little about the health of the many religious and laypeople who work there.

I feel like the way I was raised was to be able to see through all the titles in this world – from religion to race.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

My life is my argument.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

All gamblers lose regularly, but they rarely discuss it in public. Losing is bad for the image, dude. Nobody buys Hot Tips from Losers. Remember that.

I think if you make a good movie, people walk away arguing.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are good thinkers.

I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy.

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.

Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.

I’m a problem-solver.

We have language and they do not. Chimps communicate by embracing, patting, looking – all these things. And they have lots of sounds. But they cannot sit and discuss. They cannot teach about things that are not present, as far as we know.

Disagreement is something normal.

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.

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

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

If we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of why we and the universe exist.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

We are so conformist; nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff; we have been trained to be consumers, and we are all consuming far too much.

Presented with the claims of nineteenth-century racist anthropology, a rational person will ask two sorts of questions: ‚What is the scientific status of the claims?‘ ‚What social or ideological needs do they serve?‘

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

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

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.