#critical-thinking

"The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!"

"A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil."

"When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons."

"We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language."

"Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart."

"There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty."

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. - Hitchens 3:16"

"The spread of secondary and latterly of tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought."

"When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest."

"We hear so often that we must read but what is more important and often not advised is to always think and question what we read.Reading, retaining and repeating is often called education. Wisdom is when we can read, question, adapt and apply what is relevant to the time and space in which we exist."

"There is a magnificent, beautiful, wonderful painting in front of you! It is intricate, detailed, a painstaking labor of devotion and love! The colors are like no other, they swim and leap, they trickle and embellish! And yet you choose to fixate your eyes on the small fly which has landed on it! Why do you do such a thing?"

"Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity."

"Those who make conversations impossible, make escalation inevitable."