Intellectually Honest Quotes & Sayings

I am not mad: I would to heaven I were! For then, 'tis like I should forget myself: O, if I could, what grief should I forget! Preach some philosophy to make me mad, And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal; — William Shakespeare

We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. — Jerome Bruner

No one can be saved, and attain eternal joy, without all of the following: (1) a morally honest acceptance of the demands of virtue, (2) a serious effort to practice it, (3) an intellectually honest confession of failure, (4) repentance, and (5) at least an implicit faith and hope in God as Savior. — Peter Kreeft

Every man should be the intellectual proprietor of himself, honest with himself, and intellectually hospitable; and upon every brain, reason should be enthroned as king. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The curse of the human race is not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike. — Salman Rushdie

I'll admit that you felt fucking sweet as silk against my fingers when I had my hand between those pretty thighs. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Many supervisors will tell you what they want are people with energy, initiative, and imagination, but in reality, they feel threatened by people who have different views from theirs, and thus discourage or diminish those who carry bad news or make mistakes. Those who expect to harness the power and muscle of stallions must be self-confident, open-minded, intellectually honest, and also humble. — Lim Siong Guan

I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think. A rich man who happens to be intellectually honest, if he is questioned about the improvement of working conditions, usually says something like this: "We know that poverty is unpleasant; in fact, since it is so remote, we rather enjoy harrowing ourselves with the thought of its unpleasantness. But don't expect us to do anything about it. We are sorry for you lower classes, just as we are sorry for a cat with the mange, but we will fight like devils against any improvement of your condition. — George Orwell

Every interview with a public figure should include the question "What have you been wrong about, and how did that change your views?" The answer will tell us if the person is intellectually honest or a tale spinner with delusions of infallibility. — Stewart Brand

I take so much pleasure at seeing customers who are happy: happy with what they eat, but happy with their friends and sharing a great moment together, and I think that is more important in life than the endless pursuit of perfection. — Daniel Boulud

When you poll all of the economists, uh, across America that I think are intellectually honest they would all, or maybe not all, but 95% of them 96% of them would say you know we really have got a powerful economy. — Donald Evans

My parents were both very intellectually honest, straightforward, and for them, faith meant that you were fully engaged. — Rob Bell

It is not possible to be intellectually honest and believe in gods. And it is not possible to believe in gods and be a true scientist. — Peter Atkins

People who understand human behavior and personality tend to find flaws in every next person they meet, analyze their actions and develop bit sociopath nature. — Himmilicious

I'm interested in trying to explore what I think is the truth at a given time in my life, and part of the process of being honest is - in my mind - talking about the idea that you're watching a movie. You're sitting here watching a movie. And I like that. It appeals to me intellectually, and also in a way I can't even explain. — Charlie Kaufman

College feminists made fun of skyscrapers, saying they were phallic symbols. They said the same thing about space rockets, even though, if you stopped to think about it, rockets were shaped the way they were not because of phallocentrism but because of aerodynamics. Would a vagina-shaped Apollo 11 have made it to the moon? Evolution had created the penis. It was a useful structure for getting certain things done. And if it worked for the pistils of flowers as well as the inseminatory organs of Homo sapiens, whose fault was that but Biology's? But no
anything large or grand in design, any long novel, big sculpture, or towering building, became, in the opinion of the "women" Mitchell knew at college, manifestations of male insecurity about the size of their penises. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Objectivity is a false god, and the worship of this idol is particularly pernicious in disciplines like journalism and history. It is not possible to be objective
although of course it is possible to be honest. By pretending to attain to objectivity, a writer's fundamental faith commitments are not eliminated, but rather submerged
and they then come out in interesting and intellectually dishonest ways. — Douglas Wilson

You have to be intellectually honest with yourself and others. In my judgment, all great investors are seekers of truth. — Michael Steinhardt

My own view is simply that there are some very basic rules; very simple rules that apply to all writing in a way, which is: don't lie; if you're wrong, correct; do not misrepresent; and try and keep oneself intellectually honest - which means, as a writer, the very difficult task in public of admitting you were wrong. — Andrew Sullivan

Few family members act on warning signs when they first present themselves in a schizophrenic patient. It is often quite hard to realize, in fact, that something is clinically wrong. — Holly Schindler

Consider a nonstatistics example: Did the U.S. invasion of Iraq make America safer? There is only one intellectually honest answer: We will never know. The reason we will never know is that we do not know - and cannot know - what would have happened if the United States had not invaded Iraq. True, the United States did not find weapons of mass destruction. But it is possible that on the day after the United States did not invade Iraq Saddam Hussein could have climbed into the shower and said to himself, "I could really use a hydrogen bomb. I wonder if the North Koreans will sell me one?" After that, who knows? — Charles Wheelan

There is a very simple statement to be made about all these stories: they do not really come off intellectually as problems, and they do not come off artistically as fiction. They are too contrived, and too little aware of what goes on in the world. They try to be honest, but honesty is an art. The poor writer is dishonest without knowing it, and the fairly good one can be dishonest because he doesn't know what to be honest about. He thinks a complicated murder scheme which baffled the lazy reader, who won't be bothered itemizing the details, will also baffle the police, whose business is with details. — Raymond Chandler

What Hitchens should have written is: I wouldn't know the difference between conceptualism and realism, essentially and accidentally ordered causal series, Aristotle and Hume, etc., even if I were intellectually honest; but then, neither will the book reviewer at the New York Times, so who cares? — Edward Feser

Oh! Almighty and Everlasting God, Creator of Heaven, Earth and the Universe: Help me to be, to think, to act what is right, because it is right; make me truthful, honest and honorable in all things; make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor and without thought of reward to me. Give me the ability to be charitable, forgiving and patient with my fellowmen - help me to understand their motives and their shortcomings - even as Thou understandest mine! Amen, Amen, Amen. Say — David McCullough

If you give people a firm opinion, you run the risk of being wrong. Guess what? People remember when you're wrong a lot more often than when you're right. So the tendency is to include all the possibilities. It's intellectually honest, even. — Tom Clancy

Of course you shall set the bird free because you know that the wings need nothing but freedom! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

[T]he guilty as well as the innocent are entitled to due process of law. They are entitled to a fair trial. They are entitled to counsel. They are entitled to fair treatment from the police. The law enforcement officer has the same duty as the citizen-indeed, he has a higher duty-to abide by the letter and spirit of our Constitution and laws. You yourselves must be careful to obey the letter of the law. You yourselves must be intellectually honest in the enforcement of the law. — Harry S. Truman

I'm for higher standards measured in an intellectually honest way, with abundant school choice, ending social promotion. And I know how to do this because as governor of the state of Florida I created the first statewide voucher program in the country, the second statewide voucher program, in the country and the third statewide voucher program in the country. — Jeb Bush

At 19, I basically held the position that if you were intellectually honest and really wanted to get in touch with political reality then you had to smell tear-gas. — Thomas Metzinger

This was what was keeping me awake at night,' Walter said. 'This fragmentation. Because it's the same problem everywhere. It's like the internet, or cable TV- there's never any center, there's no communal agreement, there's just a trillion little bits of distracting noise. We can never sit down and have any kind of sustained conversation, it's all just cheap trash and shitty development. All the real things, the authentic things, the honest things are dying off. Intellectually and culturally, we just bounce around like random billiard balls, reacting to the latest random stimuli. — Jonathan Franzen

Conservative ideas are alive and dynamic, the result of a free and intellectually honest vision for the country. As long as conservatism is strong, the future of a strong America is assured. — Rush Limbaugh