Echoes

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

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.

Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow.

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

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.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.

Must you value what others value, avoid what others avoid? How ridiculous!

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

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

It would be better for me that the whole world should disagree with me than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

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

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.

Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.

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

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.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.

I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know, they do not approve, and what they approve, I do not know.

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