Free Thought Quotes

“It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search.”
― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

“The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

“Words to intrigue, inspire, examine, question, praise;
Words to help us appreciate our world, our selves, our games;
Words to dance our true soul fires gracefully free.”
― Jay Woodman

“But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.”
― H. L. Mencken

“...the intellectual is a person who nurtures, preserves and propagates independent judgment, a person loyal exclusively to truth, a courageous and wrathful individual for whom no force of this world is too great or too frightening not to be subjected to scrutiny and called to account.

... A true intellectual, a genuine one, is always an outsider, …he is a person who lives in self-imposed exile on the margins of society.”
― Daša Drndić, Belladonna

“Free thought is a passion; it is much rather the thoughts than ourselves that are free.”
― Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art - Why Exhibit Works of Art?

“What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.”
― Bertrand Russell

“Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place.”
― Joe Blow

“I am not much given to profanity, but when I am sorely aggravated and vexed in spirit I declare to you that it comes as such a relief to me, such a solace to my troubled soul, and brings me such Heavenly peace to every now and then allow a word of phrase to escape my lips which can serve me no other earthly purpose, seemingly, other than to render emphatic my otherwise mildly expressed ideas.”
― Col. Robert G. Ingersoll

“Dare to contradict the scientist, not because of your scripture, but because of your own rational thinking.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“A thinking human must practice thinking.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana

“There is no stupidity religions have omitted to revere; and you know just as well as I, my friends, that when one examines a human institution, the first thing one must do is discard all religious notions. They are poison to lucidity.”
― Marquis de Sade, Juliette

“We wait upon finite minds to validate infinite things— this is evidence of human stupidity.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Life without liberty, is a life not lived, and life without truth, is a life not understood.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Monk Meets World

“The number of gurus, yogis, swamis and psychics in a country increases exponentially with the fall of reason, and the fall of reason leads to the fall of civilization.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Think – think without a hurry – think without the veil of labels and words – think without the involvement of the slightest bit of hypocritical self-deception - simply think.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Conscience over Nonsense

“I think, therefore I am, but that's not all - what I think and how I think, determine what I am - an animal or a human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Lives to Serve Before I Sleep

“What price is being paid by having a society in which the individual is not allowed to think? Why must we all conform, like a herd with an agreed-upon mindset?”
― J Michael Jocelyn, Political Lynching of Kanye West: #Walkaway from Liberalism

“Nature has given you legs, not to travel the safe and common road, but to discover new territory - to draw new maps.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Revolution Indomable

“...it was Buddhism that inspired the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and, through him, attracted Richard Wagner. This Orientalism reflected the struggle of the German Romantics, in the words of Léon Poliakov, to free themselves from Judeo-Christian fetters.”
― Joscelyn Godwin, ARKTOS: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism & Nazi Survival

“The moment, you begin to think without any sort of predominant conformity whatsoever, simply to be the act of thinking, that is the moment when answers of real glory and progressive significance begin to manifest in front of your mortal eyes.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Conscience over Nonsense

“Here comes the penalty which a land pays when it stifles free speech and free discussion and turns itself over entirely to propaganda. It does not make any difference if at the time the things advocated are absolutely right, the nation nevertheless becomes morally emasculated and mentally hog-tied, and cannot evolve that healthy difference of opinion which leads to the discovery of truth under changing conditions.

-- W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America (Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1935, first edition), page 144”
― W.E.B. DuBois

“Everything needs to evolve based on the need of the era - every idea, every tradition, every school of thought - if it doesn’t then either it gets destroyed or destroys the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Monk Meets World

“I am not a non-believer. In fact, I am a devout believer in God. And that God is I, the Human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Monk Meets World

“Abandon all segregation, ye who read me.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“When enough people possess the same belief, that belief automatically turns into an irrefutable truth in the eyes of the people, even if that belief happens to be the most atrocious lie of all times.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Every Generation Needs Caretakers: The Gospel of Patriotism

“I am not here to entertain you. I am here to make you think.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“We owe a wealth of gratitude to the many heretics that have gone before us, those that had thought independently, and courageously, and dared to step outside the boundaries of conventional thought.”
― Beth Sage Owens, A Heretic's Devotional

“If only you become free, then you, my dear sister or brother, will give a truly liberated family environment to your child, and that child will give the same free environment to his or her child - and it will go on, and eventually make the world filled with enough conscientious free original human souls to outweigh all the negativity of the remaining tiny portion of second-hand humans - the real lesser humans.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Reincarnation is an ancient myth, nothing more - it is the fairytale of the adults. And as long as it alleviates people's anxiety, it is an acceptable myth, but the moment it becomes an impediment to life, it turns deadly for the individual as well as the society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Every Generation Needs Caretakers: The Gospel of Patriotism