Ronald Graham Quotes

It annoys me that the burden of proof is on us. It should be "You came up with the idea. Why do you believe it?" I could tell you I've got superpowers. But I can't go up to people saying "Prove I can't fly." They'd go: "What do you mean 'Prove you can't fly'? Prove you can!"

In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation — and reason is the best confirmation

We've taught you that the earth is round, That red and white make pink, And something else that matters more - We've taught you how to think.

I'm stupid," Leo mumbled. "Pi would expand outward, because it's infinite." He reversed the order of the numbers, starting in the center and working toward the edge. When he aligned the last ring, something inside the sphere clicked. The door swung open. Leo beamed at his friends. "That, good people, is how we do things in Leo World. Come on in!" "I hate Leo World," Frank muttered. Hazel laughed.

It's strange how few of the world's great problems are solved by people who remember their algebra.

If you don't ask the right question, every answer seems wrong -

I think, though, that we need to be armed with the critical thinking skills that lawyers and scientists and journalists such as yourself have. We all need to have those as we make our way through the day. And they're not that hard to acquire.

Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.

The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis.

What thought can think, another thought can mend.

The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt.

Thinking is one of the most important weapons in dealing with problems

Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

Invention requires both disciplines, strict common sense and wild imagination.

Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.

When you can prove me wrong, then call me blind.

...Thomas did not believe the resurrection [John 20:25], and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.

Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.

Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them?

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.

Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried.

Like all religions, Reason presents itself as the solution to the problems it has created

We seem to have trouble with [critical thinking]. And our political system doesn't help.

An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history - he is one who can accomplish things.