Autonomous Thought Quotes

By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.

… the third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to the wise and considered self-government.

A true teacher doesn't teach you to think like him, but to think without him.

I don't substitute anybody else's judgment for my own.

Learn to do your own thinking - don’t let other people do it for you!

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

I will admit no bond that holds me to a party a day longer than I agree to its principles

I intend to judge things for myself; to judge wrongly, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all.

One must be truthful and honest in his approach; a constant independent inquiry and not blindly following a certain blue print laid down by others

No matter how close thought sticks to the actual, it follows its own rules.

The conception that government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government. The ideal of democracy rests on the belief that the view which will direct government emerges from an independent and spontaneous process. It requires, therefore, the existence of a large sphere independent of majority control in which the opinions of the individuals are formed.

One man who saw through his own eyes and thought with his own brain. Such men may be rare, they may be unknown, but they move the world.

I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves.

What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.

A short story is a shard, a sliver, a vignette. It's a biopsy on the human condition but it doesn't have this capacity to think autonomously for itself.

I don't think that I have ever been rebellious. The thing is that I don't believe in people - what people tell me. I have to accept it in my own brain first. I don't listen to anyone, never.

We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what "he" thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally - that is, for himself - which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts.

When I follow my own head, I am, in general, much more correct in my judgment than following the opinion of others.

It"s good to keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you"ve heard on its own, and place it where it belongs, and come to a decision for yourself; you"ll never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you"ll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.

I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else's control. I feel that what I'm thinking and saying is now for myself. Before it was for and by the guidance of Elijah Muhammad. Now I think with my own mind, sir!

Nobody told me how to talk or think.