Independent Thought Quotes - Page 2

• Information is Power. Think For Yourself. CAUTION: proper use of the brain is not endorsed by federal governments nor huge corporations involved in serious financial profit from a brainwashed and enslaved population. Mild discomfort may occur as confusing independent thought challenges popular views of the world.

  Timothy Leary

  Independent, Thinking, Information Is Power

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• You don't have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system - a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as "Commissars - for that is what their essential function is - to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies".

  Noam Chomsky

  Truth, Independent, Issues

  "Language and Politics". Book by Noam Chomsky, 1988.

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• Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

  Bertrand Russell

  Leadership, Girl, Teacher

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Why Men Fight”, p.106, Routledge

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  Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!

  Bob Marley

  Inspirational, Music, Song

  "Redemption Song" (song) (1980)

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• TV's sameness has destroyed many things, such as the American urge toward independent thought.

  Bennett Cerf

  Independent, Tvs, Urges

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• A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.

  Banksy

  Independent, People, Use

  Banksy (2005). “Banksy: wall and piece”, Random House UK

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• How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?

  Albert Einstein

  Independent, Science, Reality

  Albert Einstein, Stephen W. Hawking (2007). “A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein”, p.249, Running Press

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• If you're not prepared to give some truly independent thought to what this world is all about, then what is the point of being alive?

  Stephen Curry

  Independent, Giving, Alive

  Source: www.thefreethinktank.com

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• In times of totalitarian or autocratic rule, music (indeed culture in general) is often the only avenue of independent thought. It is the only way people can meet as equals, and exchange ideas. Culture then becomes primarily the voice of the oppressed and it takes over from politics as a driving force for change.

  Daniel Barenboim

  Independent, Ideas, Voice

  Reith Lectures: In the Beginning was Sound, downloads.bbc.co.uk. 2006.

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• Success also requires the courage to risk disapproval. Most independent thought, new ideas, or endeavors beyond the common measure are greeted with disapproval, and ranging from skepticism and ridicule to violent outrage. To persevere in anything exceptional requires inner strength and the unshakable conviction that you are right.

  Chin-Ning Chu

  Independent, Ideas, Risk

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• Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them.  And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.  The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special. Because everyone is.

  David McCullough

  Independent, Exercise, Creative

  "Commencement speaker blasts students". www.washingtonpost.com. June 8, 2012.

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  You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Wise, Peace

  Gandhi, Mahatma “Inspiring Thoughts”, Rajpal & Sons

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• The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Lying, Independent, Thinking

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.3, Basic Books

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• The time has come for people of reason to say: Enough is Enough! Religious faith discourages independent thought, it's divisive and it's dangerous.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Independent, People

  "The root of all evil?". www.smh.com.au. May 21, 2007.

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• People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.

  Anne Frank

  Inspirational, Independent, People

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• Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship in the present period of technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. Through technical means like the radio and the loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.

  Albert Speer

  Country, Mean, Independent

  "Nuremberg: The War Crimes Trial". Book by Richard Norton-Taylor, Nicolas Kent, 1997.

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• Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Honesty, Fear, Independent

  graf Leo Tolstoy, Aylmer Maude (1934). “The Works of Leo Tolstoy ...: On life and essays on religion, tr. by Aylmer Maude”

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• Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.

  Emma Goldman

  Forgiveness, Independent, Thinking

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.27, 谷月社

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• You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.

  Winston Churchill

  Powerful, Fear, Home

  "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London, October 16, 1938.

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• The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.

  George Orwell

  War, Party, Independent

  George Orwell (1976). “The Penguin complete novels of George Orwell”

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• Education in Chess has to be an education in independent thinking and judging. Chess must not be memorized.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Independent, Thinking, Judging

  Emanuel Lasker (2013). “Lasker's Manual of Chess”, p.337, Courier Corporation

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• Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self-employment and artistic autonomy.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Educational, War, Independent

  1964 UnderstandingMedia, ch.33.

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• Silence is hereby outlawed. Silence breeds independent thought, which in turn breeds dissent.

  Frank Beddor

  Independent, Silence, Dissent

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• Here in the enclave, one didn't prosper by demonstrating too much independent thought.

  Ann Aguirre

  Independent, Too Much, Demonstrating

  Ann Aguirre (2011). “Enclave”, p.5, Macmillan

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• Paste Magazine really embodies all that's left of a true independent thought and expression in music journalism in the states right now. Please support the cause and lift them up to keep them moving forward.

  Shawn Mullins

  Moving, Independent, Expression

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