“Thinking men cannot be ruled.” – Ayn Rand
"If
you make people think they are thinking they will love you, but if you really
make them think they will kill you. " - Albert
Einstein
“Only
10% of people think, and 90% of them are wrong.” – Saganista
"Most
people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so." – Bertrand
Russell
This is the test and triumph of
originality, not to show us what has never been, and what we may therefore very
easily never have dreamt of, but to point out to us what is before our eyes and
under our feet, though we have had no suspicion of its existence, for want of
sufficient strength of intuition, of determined grasp of mind to seize and
retain it. -- William Hazlitt
Genius never desires what does
not exist. -- Kierkegaard
“Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius who have given their lives to better the condition of their fellow-men. It may be well enough here to ask the question: What is greatness? A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the Bastille of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others. A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men. If the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians now. A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon: in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy. Greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not greatness. The place does not make the man, nor the scepter the king. Greatness is from within.”
“Every brain is a field where nature
sows the seeds of thought, and the crop depends upon the soil.” -- Robert Ingersoll
“Genius is the capacity for
productive reaction against one's training.” -- Bernard Berenson
“So few people think. When we
find one who really does, we call him a genius.” -- Author Unknown
"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”- Thomas Paine.
There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought. It is the hardest work in the world. This is especially true when truth is contrary to appearances." -- Wallace D. Wattles
"The ideal tyranny is that
which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves
are, therefore, those which blissfully and unknowingly enslave
themselves." -- Dresden James
“The greatest scientific genius, from the moment that he becomes an academian, an officially licensed savant, inevitably lapses into sluggishness. He loses his spontaneity, his revolutionary hardihood, and that troublesome and savage energy characteristic of the grandest geniuses, ever called to destroy old tottering worlds and lay the foundations of new. He undoubtedly gains in politeness, in utilitarian and practical wisdom, what he loses in power of thought. In a word, he becomes corrupted.”
“Does it follow that I reject
all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to
the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I
consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special
knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor
the architect nor savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them
freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character,
their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and
censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any
special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that
which seems to me the soundest. But I recognise no infallible authority, even
in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty
and the sincerity of such or such individual, I have no absolute faith in any
person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to
the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid
slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.” --Mikhail Bakunin