Quotes & Sayings About Thinking Critically

There's less critical thinking going on in this country on a Main Street level - forget about the media - than ever before. We've never needed people to think more critically than now, and they've taken a big nap. — Alec Baldwin

You cannot avoid making judgements but you can become more conscious of the way in which you make them. This is critically important because once we judge someone or something we tend to stop thinking about them or it. — Neil Postman

I think hip-hop can be prophetic and progressive, and at the same time, the dominant forms tend to be homophobic, misogynistic and something that we need to critically call into question. — Cornel West

Good satire goes beyond the specific point it's trying to make and teaches you how to think critically. Even after your favorite cartoonist retires or [Stephen] Colbert wraps it up, you're not left believing everything they're telling you. — Aaron McGruder

Intentions. That's important in music, too. Critically important. What you're thinking about can be what you become. — Mitch Albom

Transitions are critically important. I want the reader to turn the page without thinking she's turning the page. It must flow seamlessly. — Janet Evanovich

I believe whatever smart, ambitious people are working on will be the trend of the future. I do think that it's worth thinking critically about what the future will be. — Sam Altman

If you claim to 'love' animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love. — Gary L. Francione

Propose theories which can be criticized. Think about possible decisive falsifying experiments-crucial experiments. But do not give up your theories too easily-not, at any rate, before you have critically examined your criticism. — Karl Popper

To be moral involves taking a position towards that matrix, thinking critically about what is taken for granted. — Maxine Greene

The basic rule for thinking about faith is this: What matters about faith is not us, but the object of faith. Faith isn't primarily a power or capacity in me; it isn't first and foremost an attitude which I adopt; indeed, it's not first of all something which I do. Faith is objective - that is, faith is wholly turned outward to the object of faith. In a real sense, it's not faith itself but that toward which faith is turned that is critically important in getting our thinking straight. What matters about faith is therefore not us but God, the object of faith. But — John Webster

The United States is a society in which people not only can get by without knowing much about the wider world but are systematically encouraged not to think independently or critically, and instead to accept the mythology of the United States as a benevolent, misunderstood giant as it lumbers around the world trying to do good. — Robert Jensen

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe. — Charlton Heston

You have to learn to say no not just to things you don't want to do, you have to say no to things that you want to do, things that are good to do. You have to realize that every time you say yes to one thing you've got to take something else off the plate. Critically, I think you have to realize that it's easier to say no than to say maybe. — Debora Spar

...Society needs to open its collective mind to all ideas and ideologies. It needs to give its people the chance to listen to the opinions of others, and then examine them critically instead of rejecting them prematurely. Such a creative dialogue based on positive critical thinking can enhance and develop ideas. — Raif Badawi

I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak
or at least think
critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable. — Jeffrey R. Holland

See first-hand the ways that democratic education is being undermined as the interests of big business and corporate capitalism encourage students to see education solely as a means to achieve material success. Such thinking makes acquiring information more important than gaining knowledge or learning how to think critically. — Bell Hooks

The philosophy of science is inherent in the process. This is to say, you think critically, you draw a conclusion based on evidence, but we all pursue discovery based on our observations. That's where science starts. — Bill Nye

What I am suggesting is that each of us turn from the negativism that permeates our society and look for the remarkable good among those with whom we associate, that we speak of one another's virtues more than we speak of one another's faults, that optimism replace pessimism, that our faith exceed our fears. When I was a young man and was prone to speak critically, my father would say: Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, doubters do not achieve. — Gordon B. Hinckley

I'm sure people are badmouthing me. I think one of the interesting parts about the criticism has been the tenor of "how dare he." How dare an insider speak critically about other insiders? — Mark Leibovich

Thinking critically is a chore. It does not come naturally or easily. And if the fruits of such efforts are not carefully displayed to young minds, then they will not harvest them. Every school child must be implanted with the wonder of the atom, not the thrall of magic. — Perry DeAngelis

If you love your country, then you need to be thinking a lot more critically about what justice. — Bryan Stevenson

One of my goals as a professor of English is to teach students to recognize and think critically about what makes something art. — Andrew Hoberek

Women in Thai society have been placed in the space of the home. It is possible that women have assuredly taken up that place without thinking too critically about it. — Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

To think critically, it is first maturing and distancing a bit from self, no matter what level one lives on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. — Pearl Zhu

What I think is critically important is that there are lots of studies on how prayer effects people that are ill, lots of studies, and I know in my life my prayers have been answered. — John Assaraf

I've never watched Trainspotting. I just know it's a very critically acclaimed film. In fact, I've never watched any of Danny's movies [means before he met him]. I just worked with him and felt the energy of what he is about initially before I do something. In a way, I think that's why we have discovered each other rather than replicate something else. — A.R. Rahman

Think independently and critically, but never forget to think with understanding and love. — Debasish Mridha

I do believe that thinking about the world, particularly thinking critically about it, is an essential part of changing it. — Judith Suissa

Mathematicians can and do fill in gaps, correct errors, and supply more detail and more careful scholarship when they are called on or motivated to do so. Our system is quite good at producing reliable theorems that can be solidly backed up. It's just that the reliability does not primarily come from mathematicians formally checking formal arguments; it comes from mathematicians thinking carefully and critically about mathematical ideas. — William Thurston

I do not, in short, myself believe it is in the least bit undignified to confess to having been critically influenced in one's thinking by a teacher, or a faculty, or a book; but the accent these days is so strong on atomistic intellectual independence that to suggest such a thing is, as I have noted, highly inflammatory. — William F. Buckley Jr.

The economy schoolchildren currently expect to live under and serve would not survive a generation of young people trained to think critically. — John Taylor Gatto

We haven't developed a progressive vocabulary. We say something is "public," but we just mean it's viewable online. Or we say it's "open," but we just mean it's accessible. I would like for us to think about terms critically and maybe change our vocabulary a bit. What if pubic actually meant publicly-funded, or social meant socialized. — Astra Taylor

Fanfiction is the madwoman in mainstream culture's attic, but the attic won't contain it forever. Writing and reading fanfiction isn't just something you do; it's a way of thinking critically about the media you consume, of being aware of all the implicit assumptions that a canonical work carries with it, and of considering the possibility that those assumptions might not be the only way things have to be. — Anne Jamison

I put a lot of effort into writing 'A Briefer History' at a time when I was critically ill with pneumonia because I think that it's important for scientists to explain their work, particularly in cosmology. This now answers many questions once asked of religion. — Stephen Hawking

Consider what a child misses during the 15, 000 hours (from birth to age seventeen) he spends in front of the TV screen. He is not working in the garage with his father, or in the garden with his mother. He is not doing homework, or reading, or collecting stamps. He is not cleaning his room, washing the supper dishes, or cutting the lawn. He is not listening to a discussion about community politics among his parents and their friends. He is not playing baseball or going fishing, or painting pictures. Exactly what does television offer that is so valuable it can replace these activities that transform an impulsive, self-absorbed child into a critically thinking adult? — Paul Copperman

As human beings, are we meant to develop as individuals serving only our own needs or also serving the needs of others? Do we aspire to develop as critically thinking, creative,innovative, humane people, or do we just want to think of ourselves as members of a specific nation and culture? Freedom allows choice and liberal education advocates for a specific choice: that the purpose of freedom is to enable creative, critically thinking,caring individuals to build healthy societies that serve universal (not just parochial) ends. — Gregory S. Prince Jr.

What the head thinks, should be examined critically in the heart and this right decision should be carried out by the hands. This should be the primary product of the educational process. — Sai Baba

Labels bias our perceptions, thinking, and behavior. A label or story can either separate us from, or connect us to, nature. For our health and happiness, we must critically evaluate our labels and stories by their effects. — Michael J. Cohen

Solidarity is learned through 'contact' rather than 'concepts.' Students in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively. They should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and the oppressed. — Peter Hans Kolvenbach

I look at everything I've done critically - but I think that's the job of an actor. If you ever sit on your laurels or think that you're good - in a way, I don't then think you're pushing yourself. — Nicole Kidman

Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity. — Peter Singer

The love of wisdom is a way of life; that is to say, it's a set of practices that have to do with mustering the courage to think critically about ourselves, society, and the world; mustering the courage to empathize; the courage, I would say, to love; the courage to have compassion with others, especially the widow and the orphan, the fatherless and the motherless, poor and working peoples, gays and lesbians, and so forth - and the courage to hope. — Cornel West

Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me. — Dan Barker

There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction. And thinking through, asking the questions, "Well, then what happens? What comes next?" is critically important. — Chuck Hagel

When people in a democracy are not educated in the art of living
to strengthen their conscience, compassion, and ability to question and think critically
they can be easily manipulated by fear and propaganda. A democracy is only as wise as its citizens, and a democracy of ignorant citizens can be as dangerous as a dictatorship. — Paul K. Chappell

What I saw as the negative effect on women's minds of such mundane "tracking" activities as calorie counting, I had sensed that the reason so many tasks women are expected to do in society involve this kind of thinking (e.g. scanning, list making, judging themselves critically, "measuring up") had something to do with the suppressive effect this kind of thinking has on other, bolder kinds of intellectual or emotional leaps. — Naomi Wolf