It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

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

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

Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace.

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

Everything popular is wrong.

I’m a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.

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

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

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

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

How is it possible for someone who believes that the world was created in six days to have a rational conversation with me, who doesn’t believe that, about other possibilities?

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

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

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

Religion is just mind control.

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

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

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

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

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.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

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.

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.

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

If you are giving a graduate course you don’t try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking – it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.

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.

I still think like a Marxist in many ways.

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

We’ve got to dumb America up again.

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

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.

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.

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

Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.

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

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

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

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.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

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.

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

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

Let the path be open to talent.

Information is not knowledge.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

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

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

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

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.

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

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.