Free Thinking Quotes

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

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.

I've read The Satanic Verses and I thought it a nasty, sneering, free-thinking book... I can understand why the book is offensive and it didn't seem to me to be anything but offensive when I read it.

I grew up with a good set of values, but it was never too strict. I was always encouraged to be a free-thinking individual.

Germany will never be a real, free thinking and free feeling friend of Israel, because it will always fall under this shadow.

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.

We were taught to be free-thinking, independent, to look at your goals. And that old saying, you could never go home was never true in my community. We always felt like we could go home.

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.

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!

When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That's dangerous for human development.

It's entirely possible to function as a free-thinking individual without succumbing to narcissism. This can be tricky at times, I suppose, but then so can the tango - particularly if you're dancing alone.

I think there are still plenty of free-thinking creative people out there. There always will be.

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.

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

Atheism ... that bugbear of women and fools ... is the very top and perfection of free-thinking. It is the grand arcanum to which a true genius naturally riseth, by a certain climax or gradation of thought, and without which he can never possess his soul in absolute liberty and repose.

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.

There being in the make of an English mind a certain gloom and eagerness, which carries to the sad extreme; religion to fanaticism; free-thinking to atheism; liberty to rebellion.

If we do not allow free thinking in chemistry or biology, why should we allow it in morals or politics?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

I'm always working on something. I wish I had more time for free-thinking and brainstorming new ideas. That's not to say my mind doesn't wander, but I find myself wishing for more of that kind of time.

The mainstream perception that conservatives are close-minded and dogmatic while liberals are open-minded and free-thinking has it almost exactly backward. Liberal dogma is settled: The government should do good, where it can, whenever it can. That is President Obama's idea of pragmatism and bipartisanship: He's open to all ideas, from either side of the aisle, about how best to expand government and get the state more involved in our lives.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

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.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.