Michael Crichton Quotes

When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.

When a man can take a poll and tell what everybody is thinking, that means nobody is really thinking anymore.

I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.

Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

When everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking clearly.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.

The undignified mania of adaptive conformity, exhibited by many of my kinsmen, has always been very repulsive to me.

Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society…

The enemy of individuality is groupthink.

To me, the thing that sets us apart from so many other animal species is our ability to ask questions, investigate, gather information, come to our own conclusions, and sometimes depart from the pack, sometimes move away from the tribe.

I have a suspicion of lockstep and everyone looking in the same direction: that's a key character trait in me.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself

If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you

Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.

Why should we pay so much attention to what the majority thinks?

Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves.

People are so brainwashed by the rules that they don't know what really matters.

I think it's very desirable to be an individual and a free thinker.

He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

I believe that before anything else I'm a human being -- just as much as you are... or at any rate I shall try to become one. I know quite well that most people would agree with you, Torvald, and that you have warrant for it in books; but I can't be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what's in books. I must think things out for myself and try to understand them.