Critical Thinking Quotes

“Cohesiveness and critical thinking can coexist when decision makers know how to balance personal and professional life.”
― Harjeet Khanduja, How Leaders Decide: Tackling Biases and Risks in Decision Making

“The public education system did not promote the enlightenment of the individual, but rather suppressed critical thought and neurodiversity. It produced preformatted, standardized, and obedient worker-citizen consumers that are programmed to feed the system that holds them captured, exploited, and enslaved. Silently and collectively, they are sawing the branch of reason on which we are all sitting.”
― Rajinder Jhol, Shine

“Living for the Approval Rating
Of Hypocrites and Tools
Makes one an Honorary Member of Fools”
― Aida Mandic, A Candid Aim

“Instead of this, what we need is a honing of the skills of explication, of dialogue, of what used to be called logic and rhetoric and what used to be essential to every college education, a honing of the skills of compassion, which, just like intellectual abilities, need practice to be perfected. If we are to understand another's belief, then we must also understand the deficiencies and inadequacies of our own. And those deficiencies and inadequacies are very major. This is true whichever political or ideological or ethnic or cultural tradition we come from. In a complex universe, in a society undergoing unprecedented change, how can we find the truth if we are not willing to question everything and to give a fair hearing to everything? There is a worldwide close-mindedness that imperils the species. It was always with us, but the risks weren't as grave, because weapons of mass destruction were not then available.”
― Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

“One lie might eye the highest throne / inside the castle of your mind, / and any whim may play the lord / when left unchecked, out of control, / once knights of reason flee their posts, / let sentiments invade these walls, / then leave the keep without defense. / How easily a kingdom falls!

(from Interior Kingdom)”
― Robert J. Tiess, The Humbling and Other Poems

“The fairly common assumption that we ourselves can afford to be ignorant because somewhere there is somebody who knows the answer — such an assumption builds ignorance fast, and builds it widely. The rapid growth of knowledge we sometimes boast about, seen in this perspective, looks like its opposite: the rapid growth of ignorance. Unchecked, it could become absolute; and that would be disaster. For no one then would trust himself to speculate about the huge central things that matter most. He would have lost the ambition, and to that extent the power, to do so.”
― Mark Van Doren

“Most people would rather have their remarks be misunderstood than be disagreed with.”
― @Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Anyone who expects you to justify a concern for your personal well-being, or shames you for making decisions that are in your best interest, is either deceiving and manipulating you, in an effort to preserve their own security, or they're operating on the basis of irrational ideals that they never bothered to consider, and are honestly unconscious of their hypocrisy; either way, the only person you owe anything to, is you.”
― Paul John Moscatello

“Los perros, de cierto, ladran a quien no conocen”
― Heraclitus, Fragmentos presocráticos: De Tales a Demócrito

“En aquello que los hombres toman por misterios sagrados se inician impíamente”
― Heraclitus, Fragmentos presocráticos: De Tales a Demócrito

“Meras creencias lo que el más acreditado conoce y custodia”
― Heraclitus, Fragmentos presocráticos: De Tales a Demócrito

“No entienden los más las cosas con las que se topan, ni pese haberlas aprendido las conocen, pero a ellos se lo parece”
― Heraclitus, Fragmentos presocráticos: De Tales a Demócrito

“Ojalá Critón, que la mayoría fuera capaz de llevar a cabo los mayores males, con tal de que fuera capaz de realizar los mayores bienes, que entonces todo iría bellamente. Mas, por el contrario, de ninguna de las dos cosas son capaces, que no pueden hacer ni lo sensato ni lo insensato, sino tan solo lo que les salga a la ventura”
― Socrates, Apología de Sócrates

“¿No te parece suficientemente bien dicho que no hay que respetar todas las opiniones de los hombres, sino unas sí y otras no; ni todas las de todos, sino las de uno sí y no las de otros? De ser así, ¿no serán las buenas precisamente las de los sensatos, y las malas las de los insensatos?”
― Socrates, Apología de Sócrates

“Usually, a person would think of cooking as a domestic chore rather than an opportunity for critical thinking,” Dad observed during the conversation.

“That is true, but one cannot have an opportunity to critically think unless they make it an opportunity to critically think,” I replied. “Many people actually do see cooking as a mere domestic chore, and hence make it a mere domestic chore.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“...but my favorite already-discovered aspect of critical thinking in cooking is the demand for thought experimentation when trying to innovate with food. For instance, today, I made you that crab salad (although the crab was actually just imitation crab), but anyways, I observed that there was this sweetness to the imitation crab, so I conducted a thought experiment with myself. I thought that the sweetness of the crab made the crab delicate, so I deduced that it would be best to use iceberg lettuce in the salad to enhance the delicacy of the crab, because iceberg lettuce is light and crisp, as opposed to cabbage, which is thicker and has a stronger and most likely overpowering flavor that may be incompatible with the delicacy of the crab. In that same thought experiment, I also thought that bell peppers would go well with the salad, because they also have a sweetness similar to the imitation crab, and they have a fresh flavor to them, so I thought it would compliment the crab. I also added that lite ranch dressing, because I knew that the lightness of the dressing would still be cohesively connected to the overall delicacy of the salad, and plus, a lot of the components in the salad were sweet, so the ranch balanced the ratio of sweetness to savoriness. Then, in the thought experiment, I reasoned that if I sprinkle sunflower seeds on it, the dish would be more elevated because of the nuttiness of the seeds. Overall, because of my experiment, the dish had most of the flavors that you and I wanted, but you did say that you wanted more vegetables to balance out the crab, so while we were eating, I conducted another thought experiment, where I thought, of course, about adding more vegetables, and I also thought about the possibilities of adding lemon juice or some citrus fruit like tangerines into my revised version of the salad.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“J'en arrivai finalement à les croire, incapable que j'étais d'imaginer (c'était au-dessus de mon audace) que tous les autres pouvaient se tromper, que la Révolution elle-même, l'esprit du temps, se trompait, tandis que moi, individu, j'avais raison.”
― Milan Kundera, The Joke

“From what I can tell, most people are stuck in a developmental stage prior to critical thinking, where social and psychological factors are the ultimate reason for their ideas. Gaining popularity and social acceptance are usually higher goals than figuring out the truth, especially if the truth is unpopular.”
― Steve Patterson

“It is your witness who constructs the story, one scene at a time.”
― Francis P. Karam, The Truth Engine: Cross-Examination Outside the Box

“Conocer el todo. Un pequeño cerebro que no pesa más de un kilogramo y medio, situado en algún punto minúsculo de un planeta minúsculo en una coordenada ínfima de las tantas ínfimas posibles combinaciones espacio temporales, ha logrado alcanzar el conocimiento absoluto del absoluto. No cierra.”
― Darío Sztajnszrajber, ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía?

“Denunciar el fundamentalismo de una verdad desde el fundamentalismo de otra verdad, solo reproduce el fundamentalismo”
― Darío Sztajnszrajber, ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía?

“¿Saber sin supuestos o entender que un saber sin supuestos supone también el supuesto de suponer que es posible un saber sin supuestos?”
― Darío Sztajnszrajber, ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía?

“Hacer filosofía se vuelve no tanto la necesidad de calmar la angustia encontrando certezas definitivas, sino en desmontar los modos en que el día a día se nos presenta como definitivo. Se vuelve un ejercicio de desmontaje, de deconstrucción, de cierto tipo de desenmascaramiento”
― Darío Sztajnszrajber, ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía?

“La religión por medio de la fe y la filosofía por medio de la razón. Cada polo necesita estereotipar al otro para consolidarse a sí mismo, ya que ni la filosofía puede volverse dogmática de la razón, ni la religión absolutamente irracional. Ambos polos se deben mutuamente y conviven en tensión.”
― Darío Sztajnszrajber, ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía?

“Si yo sé que aquello en lo que hoy creo, mañana puede cambiar, o más bien, indefectiblemente va a cambiar, entonces dos cosas: por un lado, ya no puedo ser tan fanático de mí mismo; y segundo, empiezo a ser fanático de lo que el otro me puede aportar en su diferencia, ya que el camino hacia el que me dirijo es el de la transformación incesante que solo se produce con la irrupción inesperada otro que me provee la novedad capaz de sacarme de mí mismo”
― Darío Sztajnszrajber, ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía?

“The increased velocity of technological change is introducing questions that were not relevant 10 years ago, and which we have no clear answers. More importantly we are faced with the realization that we will be challenged to find answers to questions we have yet to consider.

Approaching the undiscovered requires a more comprehensive approach, one that is multi-discipline with an emphasis on critical thinking around abstract concepts. One that builds on current measurable knowledge, without being restrained by it. One that leverages the Humanities and encourages abstract thinking so we avoid being overly reliant on our current perception of what is considered baseline knowledge.”
― Tom Golway

“To summarize, the model I created was a revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Usually, in the 2000’s, it was common for people to use a pyramid to represent Bloom’s Taxonomy, with “remember” at the base, and “synthesize” at the shortest part, or the top. This was a good model for determining the attainability of each skill and the levels each skill is at, but I decided to use the umbrellas to add stronger emphasis on how each skill depended on and impacted one another. I did not think that the pyramid modeled this dependency and impact well, because it did not visually show how each skill overlapped one another; it merely showed the levels of each skill, not how each skill depended on and impacted one another.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“My story is critical thinking. Racial equality is just one of the things I’ll critically think about.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“...I think that critical thinking is the most important thing that men, women, and children alike should have.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“For example, in the example with Terry and Chester, a person who was just beginning to meet the two could come up with the conclusion based on those two axioms, which a friend revealed to him/her. The person might try to come up with a solution to Terry’s hatred of Chester’s voice, and decide to teach the two characters American Sign Language, so Chester wouldn’t have to speak, but the person might later on discover that Terry seems to be functioning normally when Chester talks during casual, everyday conversations. It’s not that the person’s logic was incorrect; the conclusion was logically valid and logically followed the two axioms. It’s just that the axioms were accepted and assumed to be true. In reality, when the friend of Terry and Chester was referring to Chester’s “voice,” the friend was talking about Chester’s singing voice, not Chester’s actual voice, and the phrase “Terry hates everything Chester likes” could have been used hyperbolically, meaning that Terry does not literally hate everything Chester likes. The person came up with a logical conclusion, but the axioms were just immediately accepted as true; the person was not evaluating or verifying the information, nor was the person analyzing the multiple meanings behind the axioms.

With critical thinking, however, there are a few stages that are required before making a conclusion: there is remember and understand, so to understand information, a person would need to see if the information makes sense or is plausible. For example, if a person was learning about the properties of matter, he/she should be able to understand that it makes sense for liquid to have faster moving molecules than solid matter, because it does not have a definite shape unless it is put into some container, or he/she might try to scroll through multiple sources of information to fill any gaps in understanding and confirm information. Unlike logic, which immediately accepts axioms as true to create a conclusion, a person must look at information with a critical eye in order to truly understand it in critical thinking.

In addition, I think there is more skill and effectiveness behind deeply thinking about information (critical thinking) than trying to discover information (logic.) When it comes to thinking about the information (critical thinking), a person would have to understand the information’s real-world application (apply), the components of the information (analyze), the significance of the information (evaluate), and what can be made out with that information (synthesize.) Logic is an objective approach to trying to discover valid information, and it is highly important, but there is that lack of deep thinking when it comes to logic alone. A person would need critical thinking to verify the axioms and see the significance of the conclusion. Logic itself cannot view the significance of the conclusion Terry hates Chester’s voice, because it is meant to discover information based on axioms, not evaluate and make something out of information.

With this, I do find that critical thinking is more important and has a higher range of skill than logic.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation