Alfred Stieglitz Quotes

The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed.

As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.

To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

I always find myself very distrustful of intense crowd phenomena, and I think those are things that we should always try to question, especially critically.

When everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking clearly.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

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

Where all think alike, none thinks very much.

Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be idiocy because it has been able to appeal to the majority

Do not believe a thing because you have read about it in a book. Do not believe a thing because another man has said it was true. Do not believe in words because they are hallowed by tradition. Find out the truth for yourself. Reason it out. That is realization.

Human beings never think for themselves. 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. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.

Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation.

When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.

Question everything, even if it represents generations of conventional wisdom.

When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect — but do not believe him. Never put your trust into anything but your own intellect. Your elder, no matter whether he has gray hair or has lost his hair, no matter whether he is a Nobel laureate — may be wrong. The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical — always think for yourself.

When your opinions start to coincide with those of the majority, it is time to reconsider your opinions.

It is undoubtedly easier to believe in absolutes, follow blindly, mouth received wisdom. But that is self-betrayal.

The rank and file are not philosophers, they are not educated to think for themselves, but simply to accept, unquestioned, whatever comes.

The man who accepts opinions because they have been entertained by distinguished people, is a mental snob.

Communists must always go into the why's and wherefore's of anything, use their own heads and carefully think over whether or not it corresponds to reality and is really well founded; on no account should they follow blindly and encourage slavishness.