Critical Thinking Quotes

I think the invitation offered the non-black reader is to join us in this expression of our familiarity and via that joining, come to understand that when black people come together to celebrate and rejoice in black critical thinking, we do so not to exclude or to separate, but to participate more fully in world community. However, we must first be able to dialogue with one another, to give one another subject-to-subject recognition that is an act of resistance that is part of the decolonizing, anti-racist process. ~ Bell Hooks

I treat every student who walks through those doors the same because we are here to teach, if not political science, maybe a little something about critical thinking or even - gasp! - life. If students came to us fully formed and without insecurities, what would be the point? ~ Harlan Coben

There is nothing more Islamic than critical thinking. ~ Tariq Ramadan

The problem with today's world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense! ~ Brian Cox

The day he is out of baseball will be the day he starts to think about what comes next. By then, it may be too late. ~ Jim Bouton

There are always a few, Claire, who like being told what to do instead of being required to think. And those are the ones you should fear. That goes equally for humans, I'm afraid. Critical thinking has become a sadly rare skill these days. ~ Rachel Caine

Just because something is normal in a culture does not make it ethically sound. Normal merely means there is a social consensus that it is held as self-evidently "true", predominantly precluding further critical examination of the matter. ~ Kevin Focke

When we characterize talk as hot air, we mean that what comes out of the speaker's mouth is only that. It is mere vapor. His speech is empty, without substance or content. His use of language, accordingly, does not contribute to the purpose it purports to serve. No more information is communicated than if the speaker had merely exhaled. There are similarities between hot air and excrement, incidentally, which make hot air seem an especially suitable equivalent for bullshit. Just as hot air is speech that has been emptied of all informative content, so excrement is matter from which everything nutritive has been removed. Excrement may be regarded as the corpse of nourishment, what remains when the vital elements in food have been exhausted. […] In any event, it cannot serve the purposes of sustenance, any more than hot air can serve those of communication. ~ Harry G. Frankfurt

A book can tell me anything it wants to, but I sure as shit don't have to believe it. ~ Tiger Gray

Thought assists memory in enabling it to order the material it has assembled. So that in a systematically ordered memory every idea is individually followed by all conclusions it entails. ~ Jan Potocki

...Society needs to open its collective mind to all ideas and ideologies. It needs to give its people the chance to listen to the opinions of others, and then examine them critically instead of rejecting them prematurely. Such a creative dialogue based on positive critical thinking can enhance and develop ideas. ~ Raif Badawi

In a situation of manipulation, the Left is almost always tempted by a "quick return to power," forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an organization, and strays into an impossible "dialogue" with the dominant elites. It ends by being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently itself falls in an elitist game, which it calls "realism."
Manipulation, like the conquest whose objectives it serves, attempts to anesthetize the people so they will not think. For if the people join to their presence in the historical process critical thinking about that process, the threat of their emergence materializes in revolution ... One of the methods of manipulation is to inoculate individuals with the bourgeois appetite for personal success. This manipulation is sometimes carried out directly by the elites and sometimes indirectly, through populist leaders. ~ Paulo Freire

Healthy debating enforces critical thinking principles - looking at things from the different angles, with increased perspective and less prejudgment. ~ Pearl Zhu

They matters of correct usage pale in importance behind coherence, classic style, and overcoming the curse of knowledge, to say nothing of standards of intellectual conscientiousness. If you really want to improve the quality of your writing, or if you want to thunder about sins in the writing of others, the principles you should worry about the most are not the ones that govern fused participles and possessive antecedents by the ones that govern critical thinking and factual diligence. ~ Steven Pinker

In May 2012 - a year after the Arab awakening erupted - the United States made two financial commitments to the Arab world that each began with the numbers 1 and 3. The U.S. gave Egypt's military regime $1.3 billion worth of tanks and fighter jets. It also gave Lebanese public school students a $13.5 million merit-based college scholarship program, putting 117 Lebanese kids through local American-style colleges that promote tolerance, gender and social equality, and critical thinking. Having visited both countries at that time, I noted in a column that the $13.5 million in full scholarships bought the Lebanese more capacity and America more friendship and stability than the $1.3 billion in tanks and fighter jets ever would. So how about we stop being stupid? ~ Thomas L. Friedman

It is not sufficient to know the right answers. One must also know the questions that produced them. Indeed, one must also know what a question is, for not every sentence that ends with a rising intonation or begins with an interrogative is necessarily a question. There are sentences that look like questions but cannot generate any meaningful answers, and, as Francis Bacon said, if they linger in our minds, they become obstructions to clear thinking. ~ Neil Postman

Simply getting a country's population online is not going to trigger a revolution in critical thinking. ~ Evgeny Morozov

[T]he downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large. ~ Massimo Pigliucci

Watch a man
say, a politician
being interviewed on television, an you are observing a demonstration of what both he and his interrogators learned in school: all questions have answers, and it is a good thing to give an answer even if there is none to give, even if you don't understand the question, even if the question contains erroneous assumptions, even if you are ignorant of the facts required to answer. Have you ever heard a man being interviewed say, "I don't have the faintest idea," or "I don't know enough even to guess," or "I have been asked that question before, but all my answers to it seem to be wrong?" One does not "blame" men, especially if they are politicians, for providing instant answers to all questions. The public requires that they do, since the public has learned that instant answer giving is the most important sign of an educated man. ~ Neil Postman

All your thoughts, imagination, feelings, emotions and sensation are part of the mechanical process that can be understood, at the state of self-realization. ~ Roshan Sharma

Primary and especially secondary education is extremely important in preventing trafficking, it allows children to develop critical thinking skills to be able to defend themselves from traffickers and to have the skills that will enable them to have gainful employment to be able to support their families in other ways than being sexually exploited. ~ Mira Sorvino

A man goes to a foreign country and kills somebody who's not aggressing against him; in a Hawaiian shirt he's a criminal, in a green costume he's a hero who gets a parade and a pension. So that, as a culture, we remain in a state of moral insanity. To point out these contradictions to people in society is to be labeled insane. This is how insane society remains, that anybody who points out logical opposites in the most essential human topic of ethics, is considered to be insane. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Critical thinking is a necessary and vital skill".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] ~ R. Alan Woods

I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas. It's so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. Someone seems like a good presenter, easy to get along with, and those traits are rewarded. Well, why is that? They're valuable traits, but we put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking. ~ Susan Cain

Critical voices have to care about history. We have to care about the way in which things get controlled in the past because that's when the damage gets done and if we don't keep that historical memory, we will allow them to do it again next time. ~ Martin Baker

The habit of reading is absolutely critical today, particularly for Christians. As television turns our society into an increasingly image dominated culture, Christians must continue to be people of the Word. When we read, we cultivate a sustained attention span, an active imagination, a capacity for logical analysis and critical thinking, and a rich inner life. Each of these qualities, which have proven themselves the essential to a free people is under assault in a TV dominated culture. ~ Gene Edward Veith Jr.

Do what is right, not what is easy. Think about the future your action will help create. ~ Akiroq Brost

In a world where critical thinking skills are almost wholly absent, repetition effectively leapfrogs the cognitive portion of the brain. It helps something get processed as truth. We used to call it unsubstantiated buy-in. Belief without evidence. It only works in a society where thinking for one's self is discouraged. That's how we lost our country. ~ Laura Bynum

It was around this time that I started thinking about how skin color defined class. The cowboy movies that fueled the goodness of 'White' reinforced attaching 'darkness' to a class. I finally took notice that the crayon color called 'flesh' did not match mine. ~ Luis Quiros

[Patricia Greenfield] concluded that "every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others." Our growing use of the Net and other screen-based technologies has led to the "widespread and sophisticated development of visual-spatial skills." We can, for example, rotate objects in our minds better than we used to be able to. But our "new strengths in visual-spatial intelligence" go hand in hand with a weakening of our capacities for the kind of "deep processing" that underpins "mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and reflection. ~ Nicholas Carr

Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

I had a long talk with my dear Fat Mary that night, because I had many questions. Could someone actually be beaten to death by such a nun? Did Mother Rufina, the new Superior, know that Sister Clotilda was so cruel? Who let her work with children? Could nuns go to hell?
Fat Mary told me she didn't know the answers to my questions, but she reminded me that it was her role to take my worries and burdens and keep them for me until a time when I could understand them. ~ Maria Nhambu

As long as men did nothing except to render their fellows wretched; as long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God maintained the strictest and most heartless neutrality. But when some honest man, some great and tender soul expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Even if we grant that digital natives think and learn somewhat differently than older generations, we may be doing them a disservice to de-emphasize 'legacy' content such as reading, writing, and logical thinking, or to say that the methodologies we have used in the past are no longer relevant ... Digital immigrants and natives alike are bombarded with vast volumes of information in today's electronic society, which ... calls for an even greater emphasis on critical thinking and research skills
the very sort of 'legacy' content that teachers have focused on since classical times ~ Timothy VanSlyke

It is important for this country to make its people so obsessed with their own liberal individualism that they do not have time to think about a world larger than self. ~ Bell Hooks

I wish I were dumber so I could be more certain about my opinions. It looks fun. ~ Scott Adams

Merely knowing that you are not the only resister makes it substantially easier to reject the crowd. ~ Adam M. Grant

If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity ~ Josh Lanyon

I think the things that are more painful to me are not the intrusion of paparazzi, it's the lack of civility that I find more intimidating and far more painful an experience. It's the lack of critical thinking. It's the endless snarky, mean way we talk about each other, we approach each other. The anonymity of being cruel, the delight in tearing people down. The tabloid era that we find ourselves in is a cultural boneyard, and that is painful to me. ~ Sarah Jessica Parker

The ability to reflect is associated with critical thinking and reasoning ability. And the capacity to be alone is one of the highest levels of development. It's important to know how to self-soothe and be confident of other people's love even when they're not there in front of you. ~ Laurie Helgoe

Why would I what?" Will asked, wanting another bite of his burger. "Why would you risk your job teaching some stupid fantasy book?" "Because alternative universe literature promotes critical thinking, imagination, empathy, and creative problem solving. Children who are fluent in fiction are more able to interpret nonfiction and are better at understanding things like basic cause and effect, sociology, politics, and the impact of historical events on current events. Many of our technological advances were imagined by science fiction writers before the tech became available to create them, and many of today's inventors were inspired by science fiction and fantasy to make a world more like the world in the story. Many of today's political conundrums were anticipated by science fiction writers like Orwell, Huxley, and Heinlein, and sci-fi and fantasy tackle ethical problems in a way that allows people to analyze the problem with some emotional remove, which is important because the high emotions are often what lead to violence. Works like Harry Potter tackle the idea of abuse of power and - " Will stopped himself and swallowed. Everybody at the table, including Kenny, was staring at him in openmouthed surprise. "Anyway," he said before taking a monster bite of his cooling hamburger on a sudden attack of nerves, "iss goomfer umf." "It's good for us," Kenny translated, sounding a little stunned ~ Amy Lane

I'm often asked, "Isn't nursing depressing?" I have experienced real depression in my life, but not because of my profession. Nursing is the opposite of despair; it offers the opportunity to do something about suffering. But you have to be strong to be a nurse. You need strong muscles and stamina for the long shifts and heavy lifting, intelligence and discipline to acquire knowledge and exercise critical thinking. As for emotional fortitude- well, I'm still working on that. Most of all, you need moral courage because nursing is about the pursuit of justice. It requires you stand up to bullies, to do things that are right but difficult, and to speak your mind even when you are afraid. I wasn't strong like this when I started out. Nursing made me strong. ~ Tilda Shalof

Eye-rolling is not exactly the pinnacle of socratic investigation. ~ Stefan Molyneux

All children in every school deserve an education that inspires curiosity, encourages creativity, requires critical thinking, urges collaboration, and nurtures compassion. ~ G. Kylene Beers

Having healthy debating enforces critical thinking principles - increased perspective, less prejudgment, and looking at things from different angles. ~ Pearl Zhu

I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which one has to use later directly in life. The demands of life are much too manifold to let such a specialized training in school appear possible [ ... ] The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost. ~ Albert Einstein

Teach the child how to think and not what to think by equipping him with the weapons of Knowledge and Discernment. ~ VD.

I don't want people to say, 'Something is true because Tyson says it is true.' That's not critical thinking. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

The goal of intellectual life should be to see and understand what is true, not merely to adhere to a prevailing orthodoxy. ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Mockery developed as a conformity enforcer [...] A good dose of mockery can still shut down critical thinking and make us fall right in line. ~ Cracked.com

The lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking. ~ Carl Sagan

No feeling is wrong. You have the right to your feelings. However, you do not need to wallow in them, and you do not have the right to act them out. The world hasn't suddenly become your punching bag or litter tray. ~ Anna Valdiserri

On the way from mythology to logistics thought has lost the element of self-reflection and today machinery disables men even as it nurtures them. ~ Theodor W. Adorno

As students cross the threshold from outside to insider, they also cross the threshold from superficial learning motivated by grades to deep learning motivated by engagement with questions. Their transformation entails an awakening
even, perhaps, a falling in love. ~ John C. Bean

In short, the liberation of the individual conscience from hierarchical and priestly authority opened up space for critical thinking in every field of human activity. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Profound question is how do you measure the non-skills component of what goes on in schools: values, curiosity, critical thinking, and so on. That's very tough. Maybe everything worthwhile can't be measured. ~ Nicholas Lemann

A true survivor is someone who, after 12+ years of being schooled, remains independent in their thinking. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Scientists are aware that all the lab-rat tests in the world, once compiled, can tell us only how lab rats act when tested, and that is how we must begin to view school: all that you can learn in a school classroom is what goes on inside a school classroom. ~ Anne Elizabeth Moore

The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens. ~ William Graham Sumner

There exists in society a very special class of persons that I have always referred to as the Believers. These are folks who have chosen to accept a certain religion, philosophy, theory, idea or notion and cling to that belief regardless of any evidence that might, for anyone else, bring it into doubt. They are the ones who encourage and support the fanatics and the frauds of any given age. No amount of evidence, no matter how strong, will bring them any enlightenment. They are the sheep who beg to be fleeced and butchered, and who will battle fiercely to preserve their right to be victimized… patent offices handle an endless succession of inventors who still produce perpetual-motion machines that don't work, but no number of idle flywheels will convince these zealots of their folly; dozens of these patent applications flow in every year. In ashrams all over the world, hopping devotees of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will never abandon their goal of blissful levitation of their bodies by mind power, despite bruises and sprains aplenty suffered as they bounce about on gym mats like demented (though smiling) frogs, trying to get airborne. Absolutely nothing will discourage them. ~ James Randi

You know, I don't believe that religions are religions. No, I believe they are philosophies with some good ideas and some fuckin' weird ones. ~ Eddie Izzard

I think the influence of books is neither direct and more predictable. Books themselves are too unruly, and so are readers. ~ Maureen Corrigan

Oversimplifying is the first grave mistake we make when confronted by complexity; overconfidence is the second. And there is a third: based on our overconfidence in our oversimplified conclusions, we overreact. ~ Ted Cadsby

Critical thinking is one of our highest achievements besides eating with a fork, so when we emotionally can't get what we want, we have to think our way towards the resolution and this is where we crash and burn. ~ Ruby Wax

To make a contented slave,' [Frederick] Bailey later wrote, 'it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.' This is why the slaveholders must control what slaves hear and see and think. This is why reading and critical thinking are dangerous, indeed subversive, in an unjust society. ~ Carl Sagan

P14 - People educate each other through the mediation of the world ~ Paulo Freire

If if could bottle and patent 'Logic', I'd give it away. ~ Andrea L'Artiste

We have to start with the little babies who are born now, socialize them in freedom and critical thinking. We don't have to throw away their faith. People confuse the two, thinking if you are enlightened that means apostasy. It doesn't. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I am heartened to find so much wit in you, that you'd give thought to consequences and choose your way with reason, not passion only. ~ Deborah J. Lightfoot

I thought they'd fact-check it, and it'd make them look worse. I mean that's how this always works: Someone posts something I write, then they find out it's false, then they look like idiots. But Trump supporters - they just keep running with it! They never fact-check anything! Now he's in the White House. Looking back, instead of hurting the campaign, I think I helped it. And that feels [bad]. ~ Paul Horner

Instead of complaining, discover ways, tactics and tricks on how to reach out to people ~ Sunday Adelaja

I think talking's important. I think aspirations are critical. ~ Hillary Clinton

And this is why studying the history of psi is important. People have been reporting these phenomena for millennia and studying them for centuries. Human experiences that continue to be repeated throughout history and across cultures, are not due to ignorance or lack of critical thinking, and demand a serious explanation. ~ Dean Radin

To some people independent thought is heresy and critical thought blasphemy ~ Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

Advanced technology does not always promise a more intelligent civilization. On the contrary, the more the common people rely on technology to do their thinking and solving for them, the less practice there is left for their own brains. ~ Criss Jami

For students, the evolution-creation discussion can be a useful exercise, for it can help develop their critical thinking skills. ~ Ken Ham

No special academic expertise is required for insight into the Orwellian use of language, only clear thinking and common sense. ~ Peter Slezak

Here's the truth: You won't find your voice over time. I don't believe that writers arrive at this strange destination called "their voice." I think a strong voice evolves over time. But none of that happens without writing. You're not writing for writing's sake. You're writing to exercise your critical thinking skills. When you do that often enough, great writing will start to flow. ~ Mitch Joel

When students learn to wrestle with questions about purpose, audience, and genre, they develop a conceptual view of writing that has lifelong usefulness in any communicative context. ~ John C. Bean

I'm afraid of; that one day, I will only see more and more vanities in the world. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

To think critically, it is first maturing and distancing a bit from self, no matter what level one lives on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. ~ Pearl Zhu

In every circumstance, though the nation has liberated already and we have worked for the nation, or we have not, providing the foundation for critical thinking to the people is still important. ~ Khem Veasna

We believe ... that by encouraging critical thinking and processing of knowledge we are creating full, well-rounded human beings ... that will enable Qatar to build up its society. You cannot build a healthy society without giving your citizens a sense of ownership. Otherwise, they will not share with you the responsibilities. ~ Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned

Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make your thinking better. ~ Richard W. Paul

When I was admitted to the University of Leiden, I expected to be presented with a single narrative of events and their significance and one explanation for why everything had happened as it did. Instead, the professors began every course with a central question; spent a lot of time on definitions and their importance; then presented key thinkers and their critics over time. My job as a student was to grasp the central question; to learn about the thinkers, their theories of power, political elites, mass psychology and sociology, and public policy; the methods by which they got to their conclusions; their critics and their methods of criticism. The point of all these exercises was to learn to improve on old ways of doing things through critical thinking. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

What is the question behind the question ~ Sulejman Halilagic

I have a positive core, and what I'm doing for music and Earth and the people is more living and less critical thinking. ~ Lil B

Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity. ~ Peter Singer

To be free, one must have the critical-thinking skills that inoculate against the alluring rhetoric that pervades contemporary society, rhetoric that is constantly seeking to undermine freedom for the sake of varied narrow interests. It is an old story, and Daniel Scoggin, the CEO of Great Hearts, recognizes this reality when he reminds his constituency that "each generation must earn its freedom anew". ~ Gene Edward Veith Jr.

The best way to destroy the decrepit is to build the glorious. ~ Stefan Molyneux

Complex thinkers attempt to extend to others the same self-forgiving bias that they offer themselves. ~ Ted Cadsby

In college, books assigned for class were read as competitive sport - the more critically, the better. ~ Pamela Paul

History can come in handy. If you were born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, you might easily accept whatever the government tells you. But knowing a bit of history
while it would not absolutely prove the government was lying in a given instance
might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth. ~ Howard Zinn

We are approaching a new age of synthesis. Knowledge cannot be merely a degree or a skill ... it demands a broader vision, capabilities in critical thinking and logical deduction without which we cannot have constructive progress. ~ Li Ka-shing

Thinking on your own terms is a critical part of letting go of your biases, but it takes digging deep and it requires piecing together the thousands of tiny truths to form original and fact-based opinions. ~ E.B. Johnson

Humanism is a philosophy that is primarily focused on how we as individuals can be good human beings. We seek to be ethical, moral and compassionate people in all that we do. However, we also understand that good moral reasoning requires us to think clearly and rationally about the problems we face. So Humanists are as much concerned with how we think, as we are concerned with what we think about. To that end we practice the related skills of freethought, critical thinking and logic. ~ Jennifer Hancock

Reading, writing, and personal introspection will not protect us from hardship and suffering, but they might introduce us to critical thinking and expose us to what is good in humankind and beautiful in the world that we share with all of nature. Contemplative thought, especially that supplemented with reading literature and attempting to write our own replies to the echoing voices of writers whom preceded us provide us with the potentiality for change, the possibility of personal illumination that enables us to experience a heighted quality of life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

If everyone could learn how to read books properly and how to use them as effective tools for daily living, the facilities of colleges could easily go out of existence without any loss to society.' -From a speech by the president of Mount Holyoke College, as reported in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, May 13, 1938 ~ Francis Beauchesne Thornton

Wishful thinking is more valuable to an artist than critical thinking. ~ Marty Rubin

These games create a space for us to play together and connect with our joy; they also develop imagination, confidence, critical thinking, trust, connection and understanding within groups ~ Hannah Fox