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.

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.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

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.

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

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‚Why?‘ ceaselessly.

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.

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

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

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.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

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

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

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.

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

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?

Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.

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

I hate all politics. I don’t like either political party. One should not belong to them – one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.

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.

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

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

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

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

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

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

One of the very important characteristics of a student is to question. Let the students ask questions.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.

To be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

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

Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.

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.

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‚Why the hell not?‘

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

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

The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.

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

I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

I think a lot of things that are the norm, that are very systematic, don’t work.

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‚how‘ and ‚why‘ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.

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

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

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

We’ve got to dumb America up again.

The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people’s opinions.