Freethinking Quotes

The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression ~ Albert Einstein

She wanted to write about something other then love. Yet her freethinking pen seemed more adhered to her heart then to her head. A battle she never felt worth fighting. ~ Coco J. Ginger

It took me 30 years to realize that being fearless doesn't mean not being afraid, but remaining steadfast despite it. ~ Kierra C.T. Banks

They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live. ~ Thomas Jefferson

But I'm not even human, waking on this soil like a dead life. ~ Yogesh Chandra

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.

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

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

To understand why I jumped from the Mormon wagon train requires an understanding of what Mormons are and how they think. While Mormons have some quaint, quirky and fanatical ideas, they really aren't much different from millions of poor, guilt-ridden souls who, throughout the march of human history, have hitched their hopes to mass movements of one sort or another. Eric Hoffer, in his brilliant treatise, "The True Believer," explains the attraction of joining a cause: "A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following 'by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated by freeing them from their ineffectual selves--and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole'. "Of all the cults and philosophies that competed in the Graeco-Roman world, Christianity alone developed from its inception a compact organization."

Once I realized this, it wasn't much of a leap out of religion altogether once I flew the Mormon coop. I simply wanted to be free from organizational groupthink. I escaped from the stuffy attic of religion's "pray, pay and obey" mentality into journalism's open laboratory of "who, what, where, when and why. ~ Steve Benson

Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude that has never again left me.
- Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp ~ Albert Einstein

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness. ~ George Santayana

I do not think anyone can read the letters which passed between Clarke and [Anthony] Collins without admitting that Collins, who writes with wonderful Power and closeness of reasoning, has by far the best of the argument, so far as the possible materiality of the soul goes; and that in this battle the Goliath of Freethinking overcame the champion of what was considered orthodoxy. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

If you just did what you wanted to do, and didn't care what anyone thought, you'd be Autistic. ~ Seamus McDuff

A thinking human must practice thinking. ~ Abhijit Naskar

In Ancient Greek literature male poets tend not simply to portray women as lecherous but to attribute to them a species of lust different from that of males: a subhuman and automatic reflex, an animalistic urge. Sappho is important because she gives a fulle human voice to female desire for the first time in Western history. Since she defiantly chooses the quintessential love-object Helen of Troy as her freethinking agent, she seems fully conscious of the revolutionary claim she is making. ~ Sappho

We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are. ~ Carl Sagan

Contention murders creativity and stupidity is in enmity with freethinking. ~ Joel T. McGrath

No, dearie. I don't need any seeds. And besides, I'm growing moor flowers. Wildflowers." "I didn't know you could, in this soil." "You can't, of course. That's the point. Flowers are freethinking things. They grow where they please. I'd like to see you try and tell a moor flower where to grow. ~ Victoria Schwab