Echoes

The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.

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

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

The reasonable worship of a just God who punishes and rewards, would undoubtedly contribute to the happiness of men; but when that salutary knowledge of a just God is disfigured by absurd lies and dangerous superstitions, then the remedy turns to poison.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

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

Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth.

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

The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.

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

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

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.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies.

The crowd is untruth.

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

One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted. (11 May 1943)

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.

Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations...

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.

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

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