Charlie Munger Quotes

It is only through the opposition of ideas that we can learn to be self-critical, to work towards intellectual humility.

That's healthy and good for us that there are people who are prepared to question what we are doing.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

It's important to have people who will question you occasionally.

Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

You want to come up with your own points of view first and then test them against what you see.

If you don't second-guess yourself, then you are not trying to get better.

We can be critical of the things that we love. That is possible.

I really like watching myself a lot because it gives me an opportunity to see it from outside the flesh, and when I view it like that, I can be a lot more cynical and see the things that need to be attacked.

The one self-knowledge worth having is to know one's own mind.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

An intelligent person is never afraid or ashamed to find errors in his understanding of things.

Begin challenging your assumptions. Your assumptions are the windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile or the light won't come in.

I believe in criticism.

I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.

It is better to destroy one's own errors than those of others.

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.

No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.

[It is] ... a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.

My music asks people to think critically, so how can I get upset when people think about me critically?

If you agree with everything I have said, then I have failed.

I try not to be an ideologue about anything. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'm willing to evolve.