Unrestricted Thought Quotes

The liberty of thinking and publishing whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrances, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountainhead and origin of many evils.

Advocacy and belief go hand in hand. For there can be no true freedom of mind if thoughts are secure only when they are pent up.

The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive.

An essential part of power is the freedom not to think too deeply

To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.

I mean, believe me, I'm not for censorship.

It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies.

It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks

The fundamental facts about the Greek was that he had to use his mind. The ancient priest had said, "Thus far and no farther. We set the limits of thought." The Greeks said, All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set on thought.

We cannot have a society half slave and half free; nor can we have thought half slave and half free. If we create an atmosphere in which men fear to think independently, inquire fearlessly, express themselves freely, we will in the end create the kind of society in which men no longer care to think independently or to inquire fearlessly.

No ideology can help to create a new world or a new mind or a new human being -- because ideological orientation itself is the root cause of all the conflicts and all the miseries. Thought creates boundaries, thought creates divisions and thought creates prejudices; thought itself cannot bridge them. That's why all ideologies fail. Now man must learn to live without ideologies religious, political or otherwise. When the mind is not tethered to any ideology, it is free to move to new understandings. And in that freedom flowers all that is good and all that is beautiful.

What I found out is, I need complete autonomy. I can't have nobody looking over my shoulder saying I can't say this or that.

Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.

Every mind deserves to be free.

The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service.

I'm intensely anxious to preserve the freedom that gives you the right to think and to act and to talk as you please. That I think is essential to happiness and the life of the people.

People must not think that all bad in man which is unleashed, the moment you impose censorship disappears from man.

The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.

The first thing a genius needs is to breath free air.

My business in life has been to think and learn, and to speak out with absolute freedom what I have thought and learned. The freedom is itself a positive and never-failing enjoyment to me, after the bondage of my early life.

Wise man was he who counselled that speculation should have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two points of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed.

People will write whatever they want and make up whatever they want anyway.

I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.

To me, freedom entitles you to do something, not to not do something.