Intellectual Risk Quotes

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

Work of intellectual daring carries the danger of increased error, in both frequency and consequence.... Intrusive regulation by nonscientists is most frightening for this reason: innovation and chanciness will die.

...writing fiction...is no job for intellectual cowards.

The best students are ones that are willing to take intellectual risks and challenge conventional thinking.

To take intellectual risks is to think about something that can't be done, that doesn't make any sense, and go for it responsibly.

To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.

Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril.

Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.

Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.

The world is philosophically booby-trapped; touch an interesting subject, and it just might blow up in your face. Some say it's better not to touch.

The scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken. . . . Astronomy is written for astronomers. To them my work too will seem, unless I am mistaken, to make some contribution.

For me, what I've always seen in writers and artists is the courage it takes to make an original work of art. I think the real risks in literature are linguistic and intellectual, and I hope we can highlight those, as well as political courage.

You are not thinking hard enough if you are sleeping well. And you would have to be unhinged to take on a subject like the French Revolution, or Rembrandt, and not feel some trepidation. There is always the possibility that you will crash and burn, and the whole thing will be a horrible, vulgar, self-indulgent mess.

Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.