Echoes

To find yourself, think for yourself.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

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

All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.

One special advantage of the skeptical attitude of mind is that a man is never vexed to find that after all he has been in the wrong.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.

Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

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

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.

Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss whatever insults your own soul.

You are neither right nor wrong because people agree with you.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

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.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.

I believe that the extraordinary should certainly be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said.

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

The world will hardly admit of an excuse for a man leaving a coast unexplored he has once discovered.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.