Echoes

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few.

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds… to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing.

I know that I know nothing.

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.

Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance ... can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

Boredom is the root of all evil — the despairing refusal to be oneself.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

You must know the big ideas in the big disciplines and use them routinely — all of them, not just a few.

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Do not go by revelation; Do not go by tradition; Do not go by hearsay; Do not go on the authority of sacred texts; Do not go on the grounds of pure logic; Do not go by a view that seems rational; Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances; Do not go along with a considered view because you agree with it; Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent; Do not go along because "the recluse is our teacher." Kalamas, when you yourselves know: These things are unwholesome, these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; and when undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them... Kalamas, when you know for yourselves: These are wholesome; these things are not blameworthy; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness, having undertaken them, abide in them.

Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road.