Freethinker Quotes

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Quotes About Freethinker

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Just as his sentimentalism is profoundly middle-class and plebeian, but his irrationalism reactionary, so his moral philosophy also contains an inner contradiction: on the one hand, it is saturated with strongly plebeian characteristics, but on the other, it contains the germ of a new aristocratism. The concept of the 'beautiful soul' presupposes the complete dissolution of kalo-kagathia and implies the perfect spiritualization of all human values, but it also implies an application of aesthetic criteria to morality and is bound up with the view that moral values are the gift of nature. It means the recognition of a nobility of soul to which everyone has a right by nature, but in which the place of irrational birthrights is taken by an equally irrational quality of moral genius. The way of Rousseau's 'spiritual beauty' leads, on the one hand, to characters like Dostoevsky's Myshkin, who is a saint in the guise of an epilectic and an idiot, on the other, to the ideal of individual moral perfection which knows no social responsibility and does not aspire to be socially useful. Goethe, the Olympian, who thinks of nothing but his own spiritual perfection, is a disciple of Rousseau just as much as the young freethinker who wrote Werther. ~ Arnold Hauser
Freethinker quotes by Arnold Hauser
The Good Book says that the meek shall inherit the earth and I expect that's probably the truth. I aint no freethinker, but I'll tell you what. I'm a long way from bein convinced that it's all that good a thing. ~ Cormac McCarthy
Freethinker quotes by Cormac McCarthy
Taxonomically, my family is Freethinker (including atheists, skeptics, agnostics); my genus is Humanist (including the religion-based), and my species is Secular. ~ John Rafferty
Freethinker quotes by John Rafferty
Write what you know," my ass. Now, I'm not suggesting that you write about my ass. But although you do not, in fact, know my ass, I give you permission to write about it. And if you think you need my permission to write about my ass ("What right do I have, as a male, twenty-something, single, childfree, immigrant Indonesian Buddhist, to pretend to understand the ass of an Anglo American middle-aged married female Freethinker?") or about anything, then you lack the courage, curiosity and imagination to write good fiction, so please find something else to do. ~ Robyn Parnell
Freethinker quotes by Robyn Parnell
In actual modern Europe a freethinker does not mean a man who thinks for himself. It means a man who, having thought for himself, has come to one particular class of conclusions, the material origin of phenomena, the impossibility of miracles, the improbability of personal immortality and so on. And none of these ideas are particularly liberal. ~ G.K. Chesterton
Freethinker quotes by G.K. Chesterton
As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Freethinker quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
What I was utterly convinced of, and still am, is the idea that the only responsibility the free intellectual has is vis-a-vis himself. He is not responsible to either a political party or a ruler. ~ Tawfiq Al-Hakim
Freethinker quotes by Tawfiq Al-Hakim
Freethinkers are occasionally thoughtful, though never free. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton
Freethinker quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton
Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are 'crutches' hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances. ~ David Marshall Brooks
Freethinker quotes by David Marshall Brooks
If we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers [Gospels] father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor... We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications... That sect [Jews] had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust... Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law... That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.

[Letter to William Short, 4 August, 1820] ~ Thomas Jefferson
Freethinker quotes by Thomas Jefferson
Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all. ~ Laurence Sterne
Freethinker quotes by Laurence Sterne
When a politician spends a million on himself, we rally and call him a thief. But when a cardinal spends the same amount on his attire, we kneel down and kiss his hand. ~ Justin Villanueva
Freethinker quotes by Justin Villanueva
To be able to think freely isn't a crime, it's a gift. A real privilege; one not enjoyed by a vast majority of people globally, unfortunately. ~ Mamur Mustapha
Freethinker quotes by Mamur Mustapha
This Old Testament - containing error, folly, absurdity and immorality - is by English statute law declared to be of divine authority, a blasphemy - if there were anyone to be blasphemed - blacker and more insolent than any word ever written or penned by the most hotheaded Freethinker. ~ Annie Besant
Freethinker quotes by Annie Besant
It isn't so long since a test of Anglican orthodoxy was applied to anyone seeking to study or teach at Oxford and Cambridge universities. One of the most celebrated victims of this theocratic policy was Shelley (1792-1811) who was expelled from University College, Oxford, for writing a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism. He and his poetry were much influenced by the climate of skepticism engendered by the French and Scottish enlightenments, and he himself was to marry the daughter of the freethinker William Godwin. In this extract from A Refutation of Deism, Shelley sets about the propaganda of the creationists. ~ Christopher Hitchens
Freethinker quotes by Christopher Hitchens
And that was how sin came into the world," he said, "sin and shame and death. It came the moment their daemons became fixed."

"But..." Lyra struggled to find the words she wanted: "but it en't true, is it? Not true like chemistry or engineering, not that kind of true? There wasn't really an Adam and Eve? The Cassington Scholar told me it was just a kind of fairy tale."

"The Cassington Scholarship is traditionally given to a freethinker; it's his function to challenge the faith of the Scholars. Naturally he'd say that. But think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one: you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn't be imagined without it.

"Anyway, it's what the Church has taught for thousands of years. And when Rusakov discovered Dust, at last there was a physical proof that something happened when innocence changed into experience.

"Incidentally, the Bible gave us the name Dust as well. At first they were called Rusakov Particles, but soon someone pointed out a curious verse toward the end of the Third Chapter of Genesis, where God's cursing Adam for eating the fruit."

He opened the Bible again and pointed it out to Lyra. She read:

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto d ~ Philip Pullman
Freethinker quotes by Philip Pullman
A free thinker used to be a man who had been educated on ideas of religion, law, morality, and had arrived at free thought by virtue of his own struggle and toil; but now a new type of born freethinker has been appearing, who've never even heard that there have been laws of morality and religion, and that there are authorities, but who simply grow up with negative ideas about everything, that is savages. ~ Leo Tolstoy
Freethinker quotes by Leo Tolstoy
Who then was the orthodox, who the freethinker? Where lay the true position, the true state of man? Should he descend into the all-consuming all-equalizing chaos, that ascetic-libertine state; or should he take his stand on the "Critical-Subjective," where empty bombast and a bourgeois strictness of morals contradicted each other? Ah, the principles and points of view constantly did that; it became so hard for Hans Castorp's civilian responsibility to distinguish between opposed positions, or even to keep the premises apart from each other and clear in his mind, that the temptation grew well-nigh irresistible to plunge head foremost into Naphtha's "morally chaotic All. ~ Thomas Mann
Freethinker quotes by Thomas Mann
From a logical point of view, anyone
who sets out to create a Great Civilization ought to begin with people, with training cadres of experts
in order to form a native intelligentsia. But it was precisely that kind of thinking that was unacceptable. Open new universities and polytechnics, every one a hornets' nest, every student a rebel, a good-for-nothing, a freethinker? ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski
Freethinker quotes by Ryszard Kapuscinski
A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely. ~ Augustus William Hare
Freethinker quotes by Augustus William Hare
I would encourage the youth to get in to their bodies as much as possible through sport or exercise, and to embrace their uniques expressions as individuals and freethinkers. They are lucky enough to grow up in a time where the individual is celebrated - it is their duty to find their voices so that they can be heard. It is time to practice compassionate communication. ~ Leilani Bishop
Freethinker quotes by Leilani Bishop
Earnest Freethinkers need not worry themselves so much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen. ~ G.K. Chesterton
Freethinker quotes by G.K. Chesterton
God seemed to have become a brand, a packaging, and people purchase this trusted brand with such faith and devotion that they no longer care who the vendor is. ~ Justin Villanueva
Freethinker quotes by Justin Villanueva
At one time, a freethinker was a man who had been brought up in the conceptions of religion, law and morality, who reached freethought only after conflict and difficulty. But now a new type of born freethinkers has appeared, who grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality, or religion, that authorities existed ... In the old days, you see, if a man - a Frenchman, for instance- wished to get an education, he would have set to work to study the classics, the theologians, the tragedians, historians and philosophers- and you can realize all the intellectual labour involved. But nowadays he goes straight for the literature of negation, rapidly assimilates the essence of the science of negation, and thinks he's finished. ~ Leo Tolstoy
Freethinker quotes by Leo Tolstoy
To the freethinker, change is anticipated, and something to be embraced. To change our mind is our greatest strength, as it has led to the most remarkable discoveries in human insight and has resulted in the drive to grow as a species in all areas of our lives. ~ Al Stefanelli
Freethinker quotes by Al Stefanelli
A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
Freethinker quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll
By the time I was sixteen I had read many books and I had become a freethinker. ~ Cormac McCarthy
Freethinker quotes by Cormac McCarthy
I don't think I represent some new category. I think I do represent kind of a freethinker. ~ Marianne Williamson
Freethinker quotes by Marianne Williamson
Because the only people for me are the mad ones. ~ Jack Kerouac
Freethinker quotes by Jack Kerouac
Ideas were found by the freethinker,
expressed by poet with the new words,
formulated by scholar into knowledge. ~ Toba Beta
Freethinker quotes by Toba Beta
Many a man renounces morals, but with great difficulty the conception, 'morality.' Morality is the 'idea' of morals, their intellectual power, their power over the conscience; on the other hand, morals are too material to rule the mind, and do not fetter an 'intellectual' man, a so-called independent, a 'freethinker.' ~ Max Stirner
Freethinker quotes by Max Stirner
I am not worried about pleasing clever minds or fashionable people. In every period there will be men fated to be governed by the opinions of their century, their country, and their society. For that very reason, a freethinker or philosopher today would have been nothing but a fanatic at the time of the League.* One must not write for such readers, if one wishes to live beyond one's own age. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Freethinker quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Says the Cardinal: "Freethought leads to Atheism, to the destruction of social and civil order, and to the overthrow of government." I accept the gentleman's statement; I credit him with much intellectual acumen for perceiving that which many freethinkers have failed to perceive: accepting it, I shall do my best to prove it, and then endeavor to show that this very iconoclastic principle is the salvation of the economic slave and the destruction of the economic tyrant.
...
Hence the freethinker who recognizes the science of astronomy, the science of mathematics, and the equally positive and exact science of justice, is logically forced to the denial of supreme authority. For no human being who observes and reflects can admit a supreme tyrant and preserve his self-respect. No human mind can accept the dogma of divine despotism and the doctrine of eternal justice at the same time; they contradict each other, and it takes two brains to hold them. The cardinal is right: freethought does logically lead to atheism, if by atheism he means the denial of supreme authority. ~ Voltairine De Cleyre
Freethinker quotes by Voltairine De Cleyre
When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain 'gnosis'--had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion ...

So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'. It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley
Freethinker quotes by Thomas Henry Huxley
There is no freedom in any religion. Only the Freethinker is free… ~ Al Stefanelli
Freethinker quotes by Al Stefanelli
Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare.
This world is not a vale of sorrows if you will recognize discriminatingly what is truly excellent in it; and if you will avail yourself of it for mutual happiness and well-being. Therefore, let us explain as often as possible, and particularly at the departure of life, that we base our faith on firm foundations, on Truth for putting into action our ideas which do not depend on fables and ideas which Science has long ago proven to be false. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Freethinker quotes by Kurt Vonnegut
A person who peremptorily denies the existence of anything which is beyond the horizon of his understanding because he cannot make it harmonise with his accepted opinions is as credulous as he who believes everything without any discrimination. Either of these persons is not a freethinker, but a slave to the opinions which he has accepted from others, or which he may have formed in the course of his education, and by his special experiences in his (naturally limited) intercourse with the world. If such persons meet with any extraordinary fact that is beyond their own experience, they often either regard it with awe and wonder, and are ready to accept any wild and improbable theory that may be offered to them in regard to such facts, or they sometimes reject the testimony of credible witnesses, and frequently even that of their own senses. They often do not hesitate to impute the basest motives and the most silly puerilities to honourable persons, and are credulous enough to believe that serious and wise people had taken the trouble to play upon them "practical jokes," and they are often willing to admit the most absurd theories rather than to use their own common sense. ~ Franz Hartmann
Freethinker quotes by Franz Hartmann
To destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction ... to drive the fiend of fear from the mind ... is the task of the Freethinker. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
Freethinker quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll
Bertrand Russell declared that, in case he met God, he would say to Him, "Sir, you did not give us enough information." I would add to that, "All the same, Sir, I'm not persuaded that we did the best we could with the information we had. Toward the end there, anyway, we had tons of information. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Freethinker quotes by Kurt Vonnegut
[George Everett Macdonald was] a valiant soldier for human liberty. ~ Clarence Darrow
Freethinker quotes by Clarence Darrow
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