Critical Reflection Quotes

• A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection - not an invitation for hypnosis.

  Umberto Eco

  Reflection, Hypnosis, Civilization

  "Can Television Teach?". Screen Education, 1979.

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• By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

  Confucius

  Wise, Wisdom, Attitude

  "Words of Wisdom to Live By". Book by Alfred Armand Montapert, 1986.

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• Critical reflection on practice is a requirement of the relationship between theory and practice. Otherwise theory becomes simply "blah, blah, blah, " and practice, pure activism.

  Paulo Freire

  Reflection, Practice, Requirements

  Paulo Freire (2000). “Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage”, p.30, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• The demands of the economy, and more recently those of political correctness and the diktat against ever offending anyone, are not conducive to a classroom or university seminar climate in which genuinely free and critical reflection on how to live prospers.

  David E. Cooper

  Reflection, Offending, Political

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Because there's such a long tradition of the arts being very prominent and very varied in Cuban culture and society, people do use the art world as a space for critical reflection and people look to it for that.

  Rachael Price

  Art, Reflection, Space

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• We are ... led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by "soft" data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.

  Bertrand Russell

  Taken, Mean, Science

  Bertrand Russell (1914). “Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy”

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• Michael Jackson is an extremely productive ethnographer, a serious reader of phenomenological and existential philosophy, and a remarkable writer at a level that one rarely sees in anthropology. Lifeworlds, unsurprisingly, is no exception. The several essays included here fit into an impressive whole that set out a compelling case for a type of ethnography of which Jackson is one of the masters. The writing is strong and the critical reflections impressive. This book defines an approach to anthropology that is resonant enough to challenge the leading models of our time.

  Arthur Kleinman

  Strong, Philosophy, Book

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• The historical mission of our times is to re-invent the human—at the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience.

  Thomas Berry

  Dream, Mean, Reflection

  Thomas Berry (2011). “The Great Work: Our Way into the Future”, p.159, Crown

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• The light of common sense is fundamentally the same light as that of science, that is to say, the natural light of the intellect. But in common sense this light does not return upon itself by critical reflection, and is not perfected by what we shall learn to know as a scientific habit.

  Jacques Maritain

  Reflection, Light, Common Sense

  Jacques Maritain (2005). “An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy”, p.80, A&C Black

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