#thinker

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#defiance #fearlessness #free-thinker #freedom #freedom-of-thought

I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable ↗

— Henry Miller

#beatnik #free-thinker #love

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven. ↗

— Edward de Bono

#average intelligence #car #driven #highly #intelligence

I think there is a danger with young people of being dependent in the sense that they don't acquire any identity or self-image of themselves as thinkers. ↗

— Edward de Bono

#any #being #danger #dependent #i

I'm not a political thinker, but I've just always thought of myself as a Labour supporter. I was a great fan of Tony Blair. He sent me a letter before I swam the Channel to wish me luck. ↗

— David Walliams

#before #blair #channel #fan #great

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity. ↗

— Thomas John Watson, Sr.

#controversy #crackpot #danger #expose #fear

I believe that our very survival depends upon us becoming better systems thinkers. ↗

— Margaret J. Wheatley

#believe #better #depends #i #i believe

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print. ↗

— Laurell K. Hamilton

#beginning #book #end #hundreds #i

The vulgar modern argument used against religion, and lately against common decency, would be absolutely fatal to any idea of liberty. It is perpetually said that because there are a hundred religions claiming to be true, it is therefore impossible that one of them should really be true. The argument would appear on the face of it to be illogical, if anyone nowadays troubled about logic. It would be as reasonable to say that because some people thought the earth was flat, and others (rather less incorrectly) imagined it was round, and because anybody is free to say that it is triangular or hexagonal, or a rhomboid, therefore it has no shape at all; or its shape can never be discovered; and, anyhow, modern science must be wrong in saying it is an oblate spheroid. The world must be some shape, and it must be that shape and no other; and it is not self-evident that nobody can possibly hit on the right one. What so obviously applies to the material shape of the world equally applies to the moral shape of the universe. The man who describes it may not be right, but it is no argument against his rightness that a number of other people must be wrong. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#christianity #freethinker #religion #universalism #equality

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost. ↗

— Chauncey Depew

#conformity #controversy #cost #counted #crackpot