Free Thinking Quotes

My abortion was so long ago I didn't think I needed help. I hoped God had forgiven me but I hadn't realized I didn't forgive myself. After attending this safe, nurturing group I know that I am forgiven and set free. ~ Barbara

Science is the most influential tool of progress in the world, not one among many, but most, yet no scientist had tried to use it as a primary tool for harmony. And I desired to accomplish precisely that. I didn't want to popularize science, for there were and are already tons of scientists doing it. I wanted to use science in a way that would have direct humanitarian consequences in interhuman relationships. ~ Abhijit Naskar

We do everything by custom, even believe by it; our very axioms, let us boast of free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply such beliefs as we have never heard questioned. ~ Thomas Carlyle

I think that people in the Bible Belt are far less monolithically religious than many people imagine. There are lots and lots of people who are free-thinking, secularists, or atheists in the so-called Bible Belt. ~ Richard Dawkins

The Patriot Act was used against me in total contradiction to its stated purpose. Or perhaps it was the most logical use of the law, since it establishes a legal framework to crush free thinking and interrupt individual questioning of the government. It is the beginning of all dictatorship in America. ~ Susan Lindauer

Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to the wise and considered self-government. ~ Robert H. Jackson

10 ways to raise a wild child. Not everyone wants to raise wild, free thinking children. But for those of you who do, here's my tips:

1. Create safe space for them to be outside for a least an hour a day. Preferable barefoot & muddy.

2. Provide them with toys made of natural materials. Silks, wood, wool, etc...Toys that encourage them to use their imagination. If you're looking for ideas, Google: 'Waldorf Toys'. Avoid noisy plastic toys. Yea, maybe they'll learn their alphabet from the talking toys, but at the expense of their own unique thoughts. Plastic toys that talk and iPads in cribs should be illegal. Seriously!

3. Limit screen time. If you think you can manage video game time and your kids will be the rare ones that don't get addicted, then go for it. I'm not that good so we just avoid them completely. There's no cable in our house and no video games. The result is that my kids like being outside cause it's boring inside...hah! Best plan ever! No kid is going to remember that great day of video games or TV. Send them outside!

4. Feed them foods that support life. Fluoride free water, GMO free organic foods, snacks free of harsh preservatives and refined sugars. Good oils that support healthy brain development. Eat to live!

5. Don't helicopter parent. Stay connected and tuned into their needs and safety, but don't hover. Kids like adults need space to roam and explore without the constant voice of an adult ~ Brooke Hampton

When people are kids their parents teach them all sorts of stuff, some of it true and useful, some of it absurd hogwash (example of former: don't crap your pants; example of latter: Columbus discovered America). This is why puberty happens. The purpose of puberty is to shoot an innocent and gullible child full of nasty glandular secretions that manifest in the mind as confusion, in the innards as horniness, upon the skin as pimples, and on the tongue as cocksure venomous disbelief in every piece of information, true or false, gleaned from one's parents since infancy. The net result is a few years of familial hell culminating in the child's exodus from the parental nest, sooner or later followed by a peace treaty and the emergence of the postpubescent as an autonomous, free-thinking human being who knows that Columbus only trespassed on an island inhabited by our lost and distant Indian relatives, but who also knows not to crap his pants. ~ David James Duncan

Sin, blasphemy, heresy – all these are primitive ideas created by primitive creatures, unworthy of the title "human". ~ Abhijit Naskar

It would much conduce to the public benefit, if, instead of discouraging free-thinking, there was erected in the midst of this free country a dianoetic academy, or seminary for free-thinkers, provided with retired chambers, and galleries, and shady walks and groves, where, after seven years spent in silence and meditation, a man might commence a genuine free-thinker, and from that time forward, have license to think what he pleased, and a badge to distinguish him from counterfeits. ~ George Berkeley

If we do not stop these mar-makers not,...it will soon be too late. We are the only nation that can halt this crusade. It might be too late in America, but it isn't too late here. Without British support the whole scheme would collapse. For that reason the future of all nations depends upon the policy which is decided in this House. More than that, the final position of Britain in the world is being decided. If we support these anti-Communist crusades through the world as we have supported it in Greece, then our good name and existence will be threatened by the hatred of all free-thinking men. We cannot suppress all desire in Europe and Asia for social change by branding it communism from Russia and persecuting its supporters. Social change doesn't have to come from Russia, whatever the Foreign Office or the Americans say. It is a product of the miserable conditions under which the majority of the earth's population exist. There are fighters for social change in every land, here as well as anywhere.... We Socialists are among them. That is the reason for our predominance in the House to-day. The very men that we try to suppress in other countries are asking for far less liberty than we enjoy here, far less social change than we Socialists hope to initiate in Great Britain. Are we going to betray these men by labelling them Communists and crushing them wherever we find them until we have launched ourselves at Russia herself in a war that will wipe this island off the face of t ~ James Aldridge

Nobody has it all figured out, not even me - anybody who thinks otherwise, is an idiot. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Doctrinal formulae are neither a set of neat definitions nor some sort of affront to the free-thinking soul; they are words that tell us enough truth to bring us to the edge of speech, and words that sustain enough common life to hold us there together in worship and mutual love... I learned to rethink Hegel and to grasp that what he was concerned with was not a system that could be projected on to some detached reality 'out there', but a habit of thinking that always sought to understand itself as a process of self-questioning and self-dissolution in the process of discovering *real* language - and thus real thinking. It is the energy of surpassing the settled individual self in the journey to truth... The Hegelian point (as I understand it) is that meaning does not come in the gaps between words or things, but in the way in which the structure and the surface of the world and speech can be so read and heard as to lead us into new and strange configurations of understanding - how words and things always deliver more than themselves, more than a series of objects and labels, and so both undermine and re-establish appearances.

Hans Urs von Balthasar... developed an aesthetic of extraordinary depth in which some of the same themes may be discerned. His 'dramatic' construal of the world is meant to remind us that we do not start from intuitions of spiritual truth and then embody them in some way in practices and words. First we are addressed and engaged by what is utt ~ Rowan Williams

When you are imprisoned by the rules of conformity, it tames your imaginative capacity and steals your free thinking abilities. ~ Debasish Mridha

The free thinking of one age is the common sense of the next. ~ Matthew Arnold

Sooner or later, if the activity of the mind is restricted anywhere it will cease to function even where it is allowed to be free. ~ Edith Hamilton

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It's not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking. ~ Terence McKenna

If you don't act now, the day is not far, that this beautiful planet of yours, which you call home, shall be turned into a dry barren wasteland by the blood-sucking fundamentalists. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I need to get people to question what they think they know, who they think they are, and what they believe to be absolute truth, what they think is real and not real. I need to get people to freethink. I have to. Because this is the answer, this is the way. ~ C. JoyBell C.

My father taught me to be independent and cocky and free thinking, but he could not stand it if I disagreed with him. ~ Sara Maitland

Innovations, free thinking is blowing like a storm; those that stand in front of it, ignorant scholars like you, false scientists, perverse conservatives, obstinate goats, resisting mules are being crushed under the weight of these innovations. You are nothing but ants standing in front of the giants; nothing but chicks trying to challenge roaring volcanoes! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Study so that you are able to meet arguments of your opponents. Equip your ideology with supporting arguments. If you oppose a prevailing belief, if you criticize a great person who is considered to be an incarnation, you will find that your criticism will be answered by calling you vain and egoist. The reason for this is mental ignorance. Logic and free thinking are the twin qualities that a revolutionary must inevitably possess. To say that Mahatmas, who are great, should not be criticized because they are above criticism and for this reason, whatever they say about politics, religion, economics and ethics is correct and that whatever they say will have to be accepted, whether you believe it or not, reveals a mentality which cannot lead us to progress and is clearly regressive. ~ Bhagat Singh

There will be select instances where the consumer is interested in paying for premium content. I think it will be difficult to get people to pay for something on the Internet that they can find elsewhere on the Internet for free. ~ Dennis Miller

The good news is that it doesn't cost much money to change your thinking. In fact, it can be done for free. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

What good is all this free-thinking, modernity, and turncoat flexibility if at some gut level you are still a Christian, a Catholic, and even a priest! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

There is yet another class that, having found that their own religion not only prevents free thinking but that some of its philosophies are also against some basic social, economic and scientific concepts of life as required by the progressive society, comes to the illogical conclusion that all religions similarly thwart the growth of progressive societies ... Such people fall easy prey to materialism and denounce all religions without having any definite idea of any religion at all. ~ Mohammed Ali Muhiyaddin

Free-thinking, powerful, passionate women are dangerous to a conservative male-dominated culture. They tend to do what they want and believe is right...not what you tell them. And so patriarchal cultures have a deep-seated fear of women in their power, their ability to give life...and take life, their uncontrollable emotions, their intuition, their constant changing. Rather than seek partnership with this power, the patriarchal system has chosen to dominate and subdue the women who show signs of it through shaming, branding, naming, ostracising, traumatising, raping, medicating...and burning. In patriarchy powerful women are a threat. Their ~ Lucy H. Pearce

I think I have changed a lot. People might feel a little unfamiliar with the new me, but this is just who I am. I realised that I just want to be free. ~ Taeyang

To think of the myriad ways that we live is to think of the ways that we die: Delinquent in our brains, in debt
If we settle, then, our due account and walk through the forest, Will we finally be free? ~ Katy Lederer

We who walk the narrow line have stood for free thinking for thousands of years. Let us continue balancing within the world as we try to understand the space between. ~ Dean Potter

Instincts are effective tools of survival, but when it comes to finding true answers to real questions, your rational thinking is the person to do the job. That is why seeking truth requires keeping your innate instincts and biases in check. ~ Abhijit Naskar

To create a new belief is easy but to understand and improve someone's concept and to develop it for good is difficult. ~ Vikram Roy

He came to find her, wanting what everyone wanted, and what only free-thinking people, not the supernatural, could give. Meaning. ~ Ian McEwan

It is within our competence to think and become bound, or to cease thinking and thus be free. ~ Ramana Maharshi

1974 was a crazy, hazy time for Alan Partridge. The Sixties had come to East Anglia and it was a time of free thinking, free love and in my case free university accommodation. ~ Alan Partridge

Rebellion is the first step on the path to originality. ~ Stewart Stafford

There's no such thing as a genuine psychic - there are psychics who con others and those who con themselves. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The Magistrate suffered from the disability of a free-thinking turn of mind and from a life that was barren and dreary to match. ~ J.G. Farrell

Nourish your reasoning skills my friend, they are the most effective tool you can ever have in the path of progress. ~ Abhijit Naskar

It's very important for institutions of concentrated power to keep people alone and isolated: that way they're ineffective, they can't defend themselves against indoctrination, they can't even figure out what they think. ~ Noam Chomsky

I had been lying to myself, thinking I was free, thinking I had let him go. It didn't matter what he said or did, I'd never let him go. - Belly Conklin ~ Jenny Han

The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free. ~ Swami Vivekananda

All opinions are not equal, as far as running a people is concerned. ~ Abhijit Naskar

China has all the advantages in the world. But it doesn't have a history of free thinking, risk-taking pioneers - the kind of people the U.S. is built upon. ~ James Dyson

The world needs the kind of education by means of which character is formed, strength of the mind is increased and the human intellect is expanded beyond its own limits. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Popularity is not an evidence of authenticity. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Find a space where you can be creative and a place where you are open for free thinking, you want to enjoy what you are doing and do what you are best at. ~ David Karp

Criticism alone can sever the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which can be injurious universally; as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous chiefly to the Schools, and hardly allow of being handed on to the public. ~ Immanuel Kant

Evolution is the life-force of metaphysics and spirituality. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books. Humans should hold it up in their hands every single day of their lives and say from the deepest fathoms of their soul – "I am free – to think – to speak – to act – the way a real, novel, civilized being should – my ancestors couldn't, but I can, and my children will". ~ Abhijit Naskar

There is more to life than both cold facts and blind faith. ~ Abhijit Naskar

As Americans, we rightfully place tremendous value on having a free and independent press. Our role as journalists is to give voice to the voiceless, and hold our leaders and institutions accountable. But the circle is only completed when that information is consumed by a free-thinking and engaged audience. ~ Lester Holt

I have been known to think outside of all rules. Even my own. ~ Ashly Lorenzana

The destination is fulfilling when the path is authentically your own; find the courage and forge your own path; your essence is at stake ~ Jesslyn Wolff

The majority of India's adult and elderly population is too medieval to think as civilized, rational and progressive human beings. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I think the [music] industry really suffered from music being available online because it made young people feel, "why should you pay for music, if it's so readily available for free?" ~ Corinne Bailey Rae

Being holistic doesn't mean mumbling mystical mumbo-jumbo all the time, it means seeing the reality as it is, without giving in to either supernatural nonsense or intellectual arrogance. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Socialists eat their children. The poets, artists, and radicals are murdered first once statists come into power. Statists abhor free thinking. ~ A.E. Samaan

Beliefs are personal, but universal truths are above that. For example, the surface temperature of the sun is around 5,505 degrees Celsius – the speed of light is around 300,000 kilometers per second – the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old – modern day chimps are the closest cousins of us humans. These are irrefutable universal truth, regardless of what anyone believes. ~ Abhijit Naskar

That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free. ~ Shirley Chisholm

She still felt like a punked-out, faux-leather-wearing, free-thinking Bratz doll in a sea of Pretty Princess of Preppyland Barbies. ~ Sara Shepard

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GREAT CHANGES IN ME I CANNOT DESCRIBE

I told the local astrologer that the fact that he doesn't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A lover may perceive a certain light in the beloved's face that another person can't. A healthy person tastes a variety of flavorings in food that a patient with a coated tongue cannot. To the sick everything tastes bitter.

Great changes and shifts occur in me that I cannot describe, but they are very real. Ways open. A fragrance from the divine comes through. No one sees this, but it is the most profound event in my life. Friendship cannot be seen or measured, but the experience of living within it is beyond argument. Words like belief, righteousness, and faith can be used however a debater wants. With Hasan the silk-weaver recently I spoke of the power of the Islamic prophets. Then he used my words to support his free-thinking lineage.

Soul comes here from the unseen to observe this world, the body, the night, and the sunlit morning landscape, saying, I have seen this; now show me your other properties, Lord of the universes (3:26). ~ Bahauddin

Atheists are spiritual slackers, right? We are the stoners of the cosmos. We think we're all over-intelligent, free-thinking, free-spirited, uber-cool, hippy-dippy, science-minded, leaning-to-the-left, hedonistic, children of Theodorus the Atheist. We're all like "Dude, I don't need no stinkin' deity" and if we came face-to-face with the Grim Reaper himself we'd say, "No worries, Bro, let's do this! Game over! ~ T. K. Decker

If you can learn to like how you look, and not the way you think you look, it can set you free. ~ Gloria Steinem

A thinking human must practice thinking. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Nobody is going to be as bad for free thinking, right-minded individuals than George Bush. ~ David Cross

Feminists believe that women should be protected from certain aspects of public life, including speech..... Feminists do not want to engage in aspects of life they disagree with. Instead, they want to silence what they don't like through censorship and criminalisation. Feminists believe that women need protection from words.
Finally, contemporary feminists do not believe that women are independent, free-thinking individuals. Feminists promote a cliquey, sisterhood mentality, but not through a collective and positive sharing of ideas. They're the kind of group you'd encounter at school who would shun you if you weren't wearing the right kind of hairband. Today's feminism is opposed to criticism and nuance, refusing to allow women to form their own opinions or challenge preconceived ideas. ~ Ella Whelan

I think always my interest in making movies is to have something really technical mixed with something that was not so formal ... something free. ~ Michel Gondry

In our own selves sometimes we don't feel right in this body. I think it's because our original nature is eternally free ~ Trevor Hall

You can waste a whole lifetime
Trying to be
What you think is expected of you
But youll never be free ~ Chris Rea

Real teachers like Jesus, Buddha, Nanak, Rumi have much more to teach humanity, than the imaginary figure Krishna, concocted by an ancient Indian man named Vyasa. ~ Abhijit Naskar

We the humans are too tiny to know something so grand as an Eternal Driving Force behind the Universe. Ultimately what would really matter in the development of our species as a whole is, we the humans serving humanity. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I think, therefore I am, but that's not all - what I think and how I think, determine what I am - an animal or a human. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I think the Internet has developed at this incredibly rapid pace because of net neutrality, because of the free nature of it, because a YouTube can start the way YouTube started. ~ Al Franken

But lying in bed just before going to sleep is the worst time for organized thinking; it is the best time for free thinking. Ideas drift like clouds in an undecided breeze, taking first this direction and then that. ~ E.L. Konigsburg

Science discovered long ago that carbon is a source of life. The ashes of my faith have prepared the ground for the planting of seeds that have produced new forms of truth, morality and meaning on my own terms, not according to the dogma laid down by religious ruffians or a vengeful God. If, as believers claim, the word "gospel" means good news, then the good news for me is that there is no gospel, other than what I can define for myself, by observation and conscience. As a journalist and free-thinking human being, I have come not to favor and fear religion, but to face and fight it as an impediment to civilized advancement. ~ Steve Benson

Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person's soul. ~ John O'Donohue

realized that I had the power to change my life if I was willing to change my thinking and release the patterns that kept me living in the past. ~ Louise L. Hay

Chick Hearn taught me how to play basketball, how to think about basketball. He taught me how to love basketball. ~ Roland Lazenby

I think, for me, when I direct my own work it's just an extension of the authorship. ~ Adam Rapp

I don't think we really gave barbarism a fair try. ~ George Carlin

To grow, to become spiritually alive, and vibrant, you really have to struggle. Without struggle, you do not move at all ... I would appreciate it if readers who come to my work would try very, very, very hard not to think narrowly as we are taught to think in America. ~ Alice Walker

I think one of the reasons we have children is to believe everything all over again. And I'm not talking Santa, here, either. ~ Elizabeth Berg

I think overall the majority of people who are practicing it as a subject are following the right line. For the aberration, don't blame yoga or the whole community of yogis ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

I think national pride leads to nothing but wars and hate. ~ John Lydon

If it be not a sin, an open, flagrant violation of all the rules of justice and humanity, to hold these slaves in bondage, it is indeed folly to put ourselves to any trouble and expense in order to free them. ~ Samuel Hopkins

I support the death penalty. But I also think there has to be no margin for error. ~ George Ryan

Let me give you some free advice. She's a runner for sure- she'll run away every time without saying a word. But here's the thing- you are not a runner. And deep down, I don't think Norah wants to run, either. She's just feels like she has to. Partly because she's a tiresome spoiled-brat smartass with no fashion sense. And partly because she's a fucking human being. ~ David Levithan

But I don't really write to honor the past. I write to investigate, to try to figure out what happened and why it happened, knowing I'll never really know. I think all the writers that I admire have this same desire, the desire to bring order out of chaos. ~ Horton Foote

I don't just think regular season. I think playoffs. World Series. That's how I think. ~ Mariano Rivera

I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations ... I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries? ~ Graham Greene

I think people relate to the music because I have a sense of empathy, and I think I have a good understanding about relationships, and I talk about them in a real, honest way ~ John Legend

This is my long-run forecast in brief: The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinetly. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today's Western living standards. I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse. ~ Julian Simon

I don't think victory over death ... is anything so superficial as a person fulfilling their normal span of life. It can be twofold; a victory over death by the man who faces it for himself without fear, and a victory by those who, loving him, know that death is but a little thing compared with the fact that he lived and was the kind of person he was. ~ Vera Brittain

They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now before I popped off. ~ Doris Lessing

Investment bubbles and high animal spirits do not materialize out of thin air. They need extremely favorable economic fundamentals together with free and easy, cheap credit, and they need it for at least two or three years. Importantly, they also need serial pleasant surprises in such critical variables as global GNP growth. ~ Jeremy Grantham

I never work out. I think it is boring, so I run. ~ Izabella Scorupco

Great are the promises concerning this land of America. We are told unequivocally that it "is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ" (Ether 2:12). This is the crux of the entire matter - obedience to the commandments of God. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

And if ten percent of men are gay and twenty percent of men are Chinese, what are the odds that a men chosen at random spends his free time and mealtime while on his knees. ~ Bo Burnham

When I think about you, I get a rush. I wanna meet my Ms.Anonymous ... ~ Bobby V