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Famous Quotes Related to Critical Thinking

"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts." - William Bruce Cameron (often falsely attributed to Albert Einstein)

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence." - Samuel Johnson

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

"The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." - Derek Bok

"It is today we must create the world of the future." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." - Robert Maynard Hutchins

"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it." - William Haley, British Editor

"Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time." - Hebrew Proverb

"Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." - Roger Lewin

"The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." - Henri Bergson, French Philosopher and Educator "If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right." - MARY KAY ASH, American businesswoman

"The man who can make hard things easy is the educator." - RALPH WALDO EMERSON, American writer and philosopher

"Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them." - LADY BIRD JOHNSON, Former First Lady of the United States

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." - HENRI BERGSON, French Philosopher and Educator

"The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life." - PLATO, Greek Philosopher

"With a smile we should instruct our youth..." - JEAN BAPTISTE MOLIERE, French Playwright

"Children are not vessels to be filled but lamps to be lit." - SWAMI CHINMAYANANDA, Indian Spiritual Leader

"Genius without an education is like silver in the mine." - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, American Diplomat, Scientist, and Writer

"Education must not simply teach work—it must teach life." - W.E.B. DU BOIS, American Civil Rights Leader and Writer

"Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts." - NIKKI GIOVANNI, American poet

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism." - COLLEEN WILCOX, American school administrator

"Those of us who are in this world to educate—to care for—young children have a special calling: a calling that has very little to do with the collection of expensive possessions but has a lot to do with worth inside of heads and hearts." - FRED M. ROGERS, Host of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

"Each student is a unique person and a powerful learner capable of great achievements. I truly marvel at my students' capacity for learning, accomplishment, and growth." - MICHELLE FORMAN, American National Teacher of the Year 2001

"The one real goal of education is to leave a person asking questions." - MAX BEERHOHM, British Critic, Essayist, and Caricaturist "Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - JOHN F. KENNEDY

"Out of the questions of students come most of the creative ideas and discoveries." - Ellen Langer

"Invest a few moments in thinking. It will pay good interest." - Author Unknown

"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." - CHINESE PROVERB

"No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. We need to see the world anew." - ALBERT EINSTEIN

"The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein

"Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used." - Carl Sagan

"There is nothing more uncommon than common sense." - FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

"Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." - ROGER LEWIN, Ph.D., British anthropologist and science writer

"Time given to thought is the greatest time saver of all." - Norman Cousins

"No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof." - Henry David Thoreau

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." - John Cotton Dana

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too" - Voltaire

"Reason obeys itself: ignorance submits to what is dictated to it." - Thomas Paine

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one learned in school." - Albert Einstein

Critical Thinking Quotes

The ability to think critically is the key to unlocking the door to new possibilities.

Critical thinking is not just about finding the right answers, but also asking the right questions.

Don’t be afraid to challenge your own beliefs and assumptions – that’s where critical thinking begins.

The more you use your critical thinking skills, the stronger they become.

Don’t be satisfied with surface-level answers – dig deeper and think critically.

Critical thinking is like a muscle – it needs exercise to grow stronger.

Question everything – even your own thoughts and opinions.

Critical thinking is the pathway to innovation and progress.

Don’t follow blindly – think critically and forge your own path.

Critical thinking is about examining information from multiple perspectives.

Don’t rely on intuition alone – use critical thinking to make informed decisions.

Critical thinking is not about being right all the time, but about being willing to admit when you’re wrong.

The best ideas come from a place of critical thinking and open-mindedness.

Don’t accept information at face value – think critically and evaluate its credibility.

Thinking critically is not about being negative, but about being objective.

Be curious – critical thinking begins with a genuine desire to learn.

Critical thinking is the antidote to ignorance and prejudice.

Don’t be afraid to question authority – critical thinking requires independent thought.

Embrace complexity – critical thinking thrives in the midst of uncertainty.

Don’t settle for easy answers – critical thinking demands intellectual rigor.

Critical thinking is like a compass – it helps navigate the sea of information.

Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment – critical thinking requires a clear mind.

The power of critical thinking lies in its ability to challenge the status quo.

Don’t be afraid of disagreement – critical thinking thrives in the marketplace of ideas.

Critical thinking is the engine that drives progress and innovation.

Don’t be swayed by popularity – critical thinking demands independent thought.

Question the source – critical thinking requires skepticism.

Don’t be afraid of complexity – critical thinking is a tool for unraveling it.

Critical thinking is not about finding faults, but about seeking truths.

Don’t settle for black and white – critical thinking thrives in shades of gray.

Question your assumptions – critical thinking demands intellectual honesty.

Don’t fear uncertainty – critical thinking embraces ambiguity.

Critical thinking is not about winning arguments, but about seeking understanding.

Don’t be afraid to change your mind – critical thinking requires intellectual flexibility.

Question everything, especially your own biases – critical thinking is about self-reflection.

Don’t accept mediocrity – critical thinking strives for excellence.

Critical thinking is not about being right all the time, but about being willing to learn.

Don’t let fear hold you back – critical thinking requires courage.

Question authority – critical thinking challenges the status quo.

Don’t be satisfied with superficial knowledge – critical thinking demands depth.

Critical thinking is the spark that ignites the fire of curiosity.

Don’t be afraid to admit when you don’t know – critical thinking values intellectual humility.

Question your own biases – critical thinking demands self-awareness.

Don’t be swayed by charismatic speakers – critical thinking requires independent thought.

Critical thinking is the compass that guides us through the maze of information.

Don’t let others do the thinking for you – critical thinking requires independent thought.

Question everything, especially your own assumptions – critical thinking demands self-reflection.

Don’t settle for easy answers – critical thinking requires intellectual rigor.

Critical thinking is not about finding faults, but about seeking solutions.

Don’t be satisfied with surface-level understanding – critical thinking delves deeper.

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The Power of Critical Thinking: 56 Critical Thinking Quotes

Critical thinking is an invaluable skill that empowers individuals to assess information, challenge assumptions, and make reasoned judgments. It is a cognitive process that goes beyond memorization and regurgitation of facts, encouraging individuals to explore different perspectives, evaluate evidence, and arrive at independent conclusions.

In today’s fast-paced and information-rich world, the ability to think critically is essential for making informed decisions, solving complex problems, and navigating the complexities of modern society. This article explores the significance of critical thinking, its benefits, and practical strategies to cultivate this skill in our lives.

Read: What Critical Thinking Skills We Require To Win At Our Careers: 5 Major Ones

The Importance of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking serves as a compass for the mind, enabling individuals to discern between fact and fiction, identify biases, and evaluate the credibility of sources. In an era characterized by the proliferation of misinformation and the manipulation of public opinion, critical thinking provides a powerful tool to navigate through the noise and arrive at well-informed conclusions.

Moreover, critical thinking equips individuals with the ability to analyze complex problems systematically. It fosters creativity, enabling the exploration of innovative solutions by challenging conventional wisdom and exploring alternative perspectives. It also encourages open-mindedness and intellectual humility, as critical thinkers recognize the limits of their knowledge and remain receptive to new information and ideas.

Related: 10 Best Critical Thinking Movies With Interesting Endings

Benefits of Critical Thinking

Developing critical thinking skills has numerous advantages that extend beyond individual decision-making. In educational settings, critical thinking fosters a deep understanding of subjects, encourages active engagement, and prepares students for lifelong learning. It equips them with the ability to ask probing questions, engage in meaningful discussions, and evaluate information critically, rather than accepting it at face value.

In professional contexts, critical thinking is highly valued by employers. It enables employees to analyze complex situations, consider multiple variables, and make informed decisions. Critical thinkers are also more adept at problem-solving, as they approach challenges with a systematic and analytical mindset, breaking down problems into manageable components.

Furthermore, critical thinking plays a vital role in democratic societies. Citizens who think critically are more likely to question authority, hold leaders accountable, and actively participate in public discourse. They are better equipped to analyze political arguments, distinguish between valid reasoning and fallacies, and make informed choices during elections.

Recommended: Interview Questions For Critical Thinking No One Tells About

Critical Thinking Quotes

• “Critical thinking is the ability to think for yourself and independently evaluate information, rather than simply accepting what you hear or read.” – Diane Halpern
• “Critical thinking is a survival tool, not just for our species but for our planet.” – Carl Sagan
• “Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking in order to make your thinking better.” – Richard W. Paul
• “The first rule of critical thinking is to ask questions. Be willing to wonder.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is seeing things as they are, not as you want them to be.” – Unknown
• “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
• “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Daniel J. Boorstin
• “The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Albert Einstein
• “Critical thinking is the ability to think independently and evaluate information objectively and accurately. It is an essential skill in a world filled with quick opinions, sound bites, and misinformation.” – Edwidge Danticat
• “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” – Robert Frost
• “A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.” – Charles Kettering
• “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
• “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.” – Albert Einstein
• “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch
• “Wisdom is not the product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” – Albert Einstein
• “Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas.” – Peter A. Facione
• “The value of critical thinking is not only in the answers it produces, but also in the questions it uncovers.” – Unknown
• “To think critically is to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, and to be comfortable with asking challenging questions.” – Unknown
• “A critical thinker is someone who thinks with reason and objectivity, not influenced solely by emotions or personal biases.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating information to reach informed conclusions.” – Unknown
• “The greatest skill a critical thinker can possess is the ability to change their mind in the face of new evidence and reasoning.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is not about being right; it’s about being open to new perspectives and adjusting our beliefs accordingly.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is a process of continuous learning and improvement, honing our intellectual abilities to make sound judgments.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is like a mental muscle that needs to be exercised regularly to stay strong and agile.” – Unknown
• “The path of critical thinking is paved with curiosity, skepticism, and a commitment to truth-seeking.” – Unknown
• “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch
• “Critical thinking is the ability to think independently, solve problems creatively, and make rational decisions based on evidence and logic.” – Unknown
• “The mark of a well-educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle
• “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle
• “The essence of critical thinking is suspended judgment; the essence of this suspense is inquiry to determine whether or not the judgment is well-founded.” – John Dewey
• “Critical thinking is not just thinking, but thinking which entails self-improvement.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the ability to think independently, analyze information objectively, and make rational decisions.” – Unknown
• “The first rule of critical thinking is to question everything.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is a skill that enables you to analyze and evaluate information objectively and make reasoned judgments.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the key to unlocking the doors of understanding and knowledge.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is a self-directed, self-monitored, and self-disciplined thinking that strives to be fair, clear, and accurate.” – Linda Elder
• “Critical thinking is the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.” – Unknown
• “The role of critical thinking is to break down problems into their component parts, analyze them, and develop creative solutions.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is like a compass that guides us through the maze of information and helps us make informed choices.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the art of being able to evaluate and analyze information objectively, rather than accepting it at face value.” – Unknown
• “The hallmark of a critical thinker is intellectual humility – the willingness to accept that one’s beliefs may be incorrect.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the ability to ask the right questions and challenge the status quo.” – Unknown
• “The essence of critical thinking is to suspend judgment, seek multiple perspectives, and examine the evidence before arriving at a conclusion.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is not a single skill, but a set of skills that work together to help us navigate the complexities of the world.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is not about being negative; it’s about being discerning and questioning what we are told.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the ability to think independently and make reasoned judgments based on evidence and logical reasoning.” – Unknown
• “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.” – Stephen Hawking
• “Critical thinking is the bridge between knowledge and wisdom.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the intellectual discipline of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information.” – Unknown
• “The mind is like a parachute; it works best when it’s open.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the foundation of rationality and the cornerstone of progress.” – Unknown
• “In a world of information overload, critical thinking is the key to sifting through the noise and finding the signal.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is not just about finding flaws in others’ arguments; it’s about critically examining our own beliefs and biases.” – Unknown
• “The purpose of critical thinking is to empower individuals to think for themselves, question authority, and arrive at their own informed conclusions.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is the art of asking the right questions, challenging assumptions, and seeking evidence to support or refute claims.” – Unknown
• “Critical thinking is not a destination; it’s a lifelong journey of intellectual growth and development.” – Unknown

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Critical Thinking Quotes

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Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Learn to use your brain power. Critical thinking is the key to creative problem solving in business.

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.

The capacity to innovate - the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life - and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

Critical thinking relies on content, because you can't navigate masses of information if you have nothing to navigate to.

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

Critical thinking is what leads to the next breakthroughs in any area.

The most fundamental attack on freedom is the attack on critical thinking skills.

To every complex question there is a simple answer and it is wrong.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

We are approaching a new age of synthesis. Knowledge cannot be merely a degree or a skill... it demands a broader vision, capabilities in critical thinking and logical deduction without which we cannot have constructive progress.

The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

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7 Powerful Critical Thinking Quotes – Deconstructed

• Self-improvement

Online, you often find yourself surrounded by extracts, maxims, carefully manufactured word combinations. Or if we can place them inside a single category: quotes. Quotes that make you feel hopeful about the future and comfortable with your past. And while reading those your mind gets pumped. When you close the browser. Open the door to life. You start making the same mistakes you ordinarily do.

The fad of sharing quotes never gets old.

I don’t know which one is more popular.

Sharing quotes of famous people like Albert Einstein or sharing cat memes. Probably something in between – an Einstein quote made like a cat meme.

What makes quotes a preferred online asset – for both consumption and creation – can be portrayed in two points:

• Quotes provide packed wisdom and a delusional state of awe.
• The person sharing quotes believes that he’s getting closer to smartness by the mare recitation of wisdom words.

Both of these, are heavily over-represented.

When you read a quote. While it might feel like you are collecting coins that pump your IQ. It’s just a temporary feeling of satisfaction.

You feel motivated – or smarter, or better, or all included. But this mixture of sensations completely vanishes when your finger scrolls down the page.

All of this, might make you wonder…

Why then create a whole post that talks about quotes – critical thinking quotes, as the title suggests?

Why Spend Time Pondering Critical Thinking Quotes?

The main value of words on a page is misunderstood.

We think that the actual words are the main nugget. That’s not the case.

Real gold is always under a layer of thick wrapping.

As we have to remove the packaging to get and use an item we’ve purchased. In a similar fashion, we need to unpack great quotes.

What I mean by unpacking is not just reading a strangely good word combination and then moving along. Rather, stopping to think about what the person said, why he said it, and what we can derive from these words that can make our lives less miserable.

That’s the essence of critical thinking .

You don’t just glance at something and think you understand it. No. You gently grab it. Hold it. And examine it from all sides. Look at it from the microscope of your consciousness to comprehend it. To find the real value hidden inside.

Quotes. Well-crafted words can acquire your attention.

But to leave a lasting impact on your mind. They need to be deconstructed.

That’s what we are going to do below.

I’m taking the best quotes from some of the great thinkers on critical thinking and inspecting them.

While I’m positive that you’ll be familiar with some of the citations below. I’m also sure that we’ll uncover more insights than you’ll ordinarily get when consuming words on a page.

Here we go…

7 Powerful Critical Thinking Quotes:

1. “the value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.” albert einstein.

What’s considered important in school is unusable in real life. You are trained and optimized around remembering facts about the past that make little positive difference about your future. We are rarely taught how to think properly. How to think better .

Surely having a broad understanding of our history is beneficial. Sadly, teachers embed a belief that we should know dates of past events with surgical precious.

And not only in schools. Modern media is also trying to convince us that we should master isolated facts. That richness is in knowing random inputs about all sorts of things.

That’s a phenomenon observed in the book Amusing Ourselves To Death . Ever since the telegraph was invented, we believe that we should learn about things that have a little positive impact on our lives.

For instance, solving a crossword puzzle might seem like a worthy exercise. But how answering 50+ completely random questions will help you in life?

The value in learning. Reading books. Watching videos even online. It’s not so much about remembering the facts. But about tailoring, adjusting how you think.

When you think better. You’ll perform better.

Thinking is the particle that pushes you in the right direction. Not holding all sorts of random facts.

2. “When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.” Anaïs Nin

From an early age, we are steered towards certain beliefs and value systems. Some good. Some bad. Some awfully wicked.

Some of these are intentionally promoted by our teachers and parents – i.e., religion, good manners, etc. Some simply occur by the act of living and by our biological needs – desire for money, power, appreciation.

There is no harm in automatically adopting a behavior such as helping an old lady cross the street. But for most of the other things we hold in our heads, we should know why we have them.

For instance, these days it seems natural to be online. To have a social media profile and to participate in the never-ending race of awesomeness. Who got a new car? Who got a new job? Who went on vacation?

Involvement in the social media race seems so unquestionable.

But have you recently asked yourself, “Why are you really using social media?” Is it because you want to connect with others? Because it makes you feel motivated and inspired? Or because you feel the need to be inside because others are there, too? Because you want to showcase how much cooler you are than the rest of the walking undead?

I bet is the last part.

Too often, we watch and get things because others watch them and own them. But as Anaïs Nin above said. This blind obeying makes us mere automatons. We don’t hold the steering wheel of our lives. We are simply responding to the reaction of others. Which means that we are passengers on a bus that is headed towards somewhere. Somewhere we don’t know.

3. “If chess has any relationship to film-making. It would be in the way it helps you develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives at a time when an impulsive decision seems very attractive.” Stanley Kubrick

The only way an impulsive decision can be the best decision is when you’ve mastered a field . When you’re well-versed in a topic and extremely confident in your skills. In these situations, your intuition and tacit knowledge provide involuntarily a good answer. Plainly, you think fast.

This type of response – quick and precise – however. It’s usually only available to you in areas where you have extensive experience.

For the rest of the cases, the quote above stands.

Any activity that allows you to slow down and think before you act. That gives you room to consider the alternatives. Is an activity worth holding.

As you can’t win a chess game if you don’t pause and consider the contra moves of your opponent. You can’t win in life if you don’t pause and consider how what you do today can turn around and slap you back in the future.

4. “You do not win by struggling to the top of a caste system. You win by refusing to be trapped within one at all.” Naomi Wolf

As the authors of the book The Social Animal explain, we are social animals.

Our foundational particles push us towards relationships. We feel better when we are around other people.

But this comes with certain costs. When people are around other people. A natural hierarchy is formed. There is an alpha male/woman and people who want to take his/her place.

And even if you do reach the top position in your social circle. Which is also the case for any other tall structure formed by men – e.g., the corporate ladder. The battle is never over. You now have to defend your place.

A solution few are willing to accept is gently removing yourself from the modern rat race .

Take social media for example.

If you use it. You use it for validation. Every time you throw something in the endless abyss of filtered pictures, you are doing it to tell others that you are progressing in some way. But others are not sitting idle. They are, too, advancing. So the only way you can keep your position is to keep throwing status updates about how you are improving – even if you are not really improving.

This creates quite a stressful daily life. You no longer just live. Life becomes a sophisticated arena. There are no fist fights, however. The battle is for prestige – who is richer, better, smarter. Therefore, your day-to-day life becomes trying to figure out how to show to others that your life is good – even when life is bad.

The only way you can win this game is if you totally remove yourself from the equation.

You no longer share how life is treating you. Nor remain interested in how others apparently become richer and prettier. You just focus on the act of living.

5. “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” Søren Kierkegaard

Our desire to self-express is motivated by our need to feel valued. What we say is optimized not based on thinking. But optimized towards receiving – these days – likes and comments.

All of this means that we say a lot of things, but we don’t say anything important.

We just dump out more noise in the already noisy world. Hoping, praying, that others will notice us.

For the critical thinker, silence is more than the absence of noise. It’s opening the window and taking a breath of fresh air. A refreshing change from the polluted atmosphere.

Speaking because you can doesn’t mean that you necessarily should. Thinking, however, shouldn’t follow this logic. You should always think. Which will oftentimes lead to not speaking.

6. “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” Marie Curie

We fear the unknown for a simple reason. The brain is constantly trying to predict what will happen next. What the other person will do, so we can prepare the body and the mind for our reaction.

When we face an unfamiliar situation. The brain simply freezes. It doesn’t know what to do. That’s why we tend to avoid things we don’t quite understand.

Paradoxically, the only way we can advance. The only way we can get outside our comfort zone is to put ourselves in positions we are not fully prepared for – e.g., a new job, facing a new challenge, a new field altogether.

So, when you find yourself struggling to find a good solution to a problem. Or you a presented with a hard-to-digest concept. This is a sign. It means that you don’t yet know the full story. You don’t completely understand the situation. What you need to do is to go and find it.

When you understand the problem. Learn more about difficult concepts. You will clear away the fog. You will be prepared. You’ll have the courage to move forward.

7. “I don’t care that they stole my idea. I care that they don’t have any of their own.” Nikola Tesla

Lack of critical thinking will lead to either stealing ideas or trying to discourage others to pursue their ideas.

Ideas. Fresh perspectives that suggest a certain course of action. These are needed for better decision-making and moving further ahead.

But how to have them?

Here’s where one more quote by Nikola Tesla enters on how to produce good ideas:

“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.” Nikola Tesla

Some of the ideas that will emerge in your brain will be useless. That’s for sure. But that’s part of the process of generating great ideas and great thinking.

Each of us has an idea-generation style. A way to find solutions to problems. Some instantaneously generate reasonable ideas regardless of the location. Others are capable of doing this exercise only when alone.

Make things easier for yourself by figuring out how you think best. Do you have to be alone? Surrounded by others? Or a combination of both – a time around others and then taking some time away to process the information.

Some Closing Thoughts

Quotes shared online seem like a desperate attempt to capture the attention of other people.

Simply because you can quote someone doesn’t mean anything particular.

You found useful words said by someone else. Good. Now what?

To be sufficiently skillful at this critical thinking judo requires questioning and observation.

This also applies when we examine the words of great people. The people who said the things above.

One smart person saying something is as useful as finding a wrench on the street. If you don’t know how to use it. It will be of no use to you.

I hope that you found handy the deconstruction of some of the best quotes on critical thinking. But what I also hope is that the whole post provided you with a new way to approach words on a page.

Not just agreeing with what was said – regardless of who said it. But to try something new. Something different.

Take an idea. Hold it in your hand and look at it from all sides.

Then, after examining it. Ask yourself: “What’s true about this and what is not?”

Add to your critical thinking knowledge by reading the following:

• 9 Provoking Critical Thinking Questions to Ignite Deep Reflective Discourse
• 5 Critical Thinking Strategies To Sharpen Your Thinking
• Critical Thinking Process (Or Acting Wisely Even If You’re Not Very Bright)
• 7 Popular Self-Discipline Quotes Explained

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100 Philosophical Quotes from History’s Greatest Thinkers

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It's completely normal to have a whirlwind of questions when faced with a difficult situation. ‘Why did it happen?' ‘What could I have done differently?' ‘Will I ever get over it?'

However, it's important to remember that we may not always find the answers we’re looking for. And that strength may need to be found in other places, such as these philosophical quotes.

Unlike most of our gadgets, life doesn’t come with a How-To guide, or a Fix-It manual to download. But we can find solace in the wisdom and experiences of those who walked before us, such as Aristotle and Socrates.

Their words remind us that we're not alone; that we're doing OK. And sometimes, that’s all we need to be able to look towards a brighter future.

Table of Contents

Why Do the Great Philosophers Play Such an Important Part in Today’s World?

Sharing knowledge is a beautiful way to connect with other people. Whether it's teaching our kids the secrets of the world, or passing on some valuable information to our friends, there's something truly heartwarming about sharing our knowhow.

And, it's through this exchange of information that we collectively move forward in life. From the basics of tying shoelaces to discovering the mystery spice that adds that wow factor to our slow-cooked Chilli, every piece of information shared enriches our lives.

So, it's no wonder that the wisdom of the great philosophers has left an undeniable mark on humanity, shaping our thoughts and actions in ways that we might not even realize.

From Lao Tzu's emphasis on harmony and balance to Friedrich Nietzsche's radical philosophies which challenge us to embrace our individuality, their words can help us to unearth a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

They inspire us to question , ponder, and evolve, igniting a passion for exploration and discovery.

That doesn't mean we'll always find the answers we’re searching for. But we can find comfort and acceptance. We can find light in the darkness. And we can find a way forward, no matter how impossible it may, at times, feel.

The wisdom of these, and many more great philosophers, continues to shape our world in the most extraordinary of ways. Their words echo through history, inspiring individuals and shaping societies from around the globe.

And, as we navigate the difficulties of our modern world, we can embrace and apply these timeless philosophies in our daily lives.

We can draw strength and guidance from the words in these philosophical quotes. And strive to create a better world for ourselves and future generations.

100 Philosophical Quotes from History's Greatest Thinkers

• “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
• “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance” – Socrates
• “Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.” – Christopher Markus
• “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” – the Dalai Lama
• “Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.” – Voltaire
• “Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky

• “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose .” – Victor Frankl
• “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.” – Baruch Spinoza
• “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” – William James
• “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
• “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” – Albert Camus
• “I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.” – Ayn Rand
• “If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

• “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” – Marcus Aurelius
• “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” – Henry David Thoreau
• “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.” – Aristotle
• “The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone” – John Locke
• “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” – Albert Einstein
• “We live in the best of all possible worlds” – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• “The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.” – Lao Tzu
• “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” – Marcus Aurelius
• “Let come what comes, let go what goes. See what remains.” – Ramana Maharshi
• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
• “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” – Aristotle
• “One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.” – Stephen Hawking
• “Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.” – Isaac Asimov
• “You always admire what you really don't understand.” – Blaise Pascal
• “Without music, life would be a mistake.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

• “He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.” – Thomas Carlyle
• “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw
• “A truth that’s told with bad intent. Beats all the lies you can invent.” – William Blake
• “No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience” – John Locke
• “Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of.” – Markus Zusak
• “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” – Socrates
• “Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but of how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” – Immanuel Kant
• “We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” – Santosh Kalwar
• “Liberty consists in doing what one desires” – John Stuart Mill
• “Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.” – Max Stirner

Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.” – Max Stirner

• “A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.” – Gilles Deleuze
• “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius
• “Without struggle, no progress and no result. Every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine.” – George Gurdjieff
• “No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” – George Lucas
• “Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly” – Francis Bacon
• “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” – Marcus Aurelius
• “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle
• “Out of difficulties grow miracles.” – Jean de la Bruyere
• “Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.” – Ayn Rand
• “The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.” – Dan Millman

• “Our life is what our thoughts make it.” – Marcus Aurelius
• “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” – Aristotle
• “The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
• “It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration, and respect.” – Hermann Hesse
• A healthy social life is found only when, in the mirror of each soul, the whole community finds its reflection, and when, in the whole community, the virtue of each one is living.” – Rudolf Steine r
• “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” – René Descartes
• “Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward ” – Søren Kierkegaard
• “Even the finest sword plunged into salt water will eventually rust.” – Sun Tzu
• “The past has no power over the present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle
• “Don’t just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.” – Epictetus

Don’t just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.” – Epictetus

• “If ignorance is bliss, there should be more happy people.” – Victor Cousin
• “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” – Epictetus
• “If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.” – Marcus Aurelius
• “I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach.” – Ayn Rand
• “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch
• “The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure….you are above everything distressing.” – Baruch Spinoza
• “The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” – William James
• “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.” – Leo Tolstoy
• “One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, and compassion” – Simone de Beauvoir
• “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” – Aristotle

• “History is Philosophy teaching by examples” – Thucydides
• “Words do not express thoughts very well; everything immediately becomes a little different, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom of one man seems nonsense to another.” – Siddhartha Gautama
•  “Happiness is the feeling that power increases — that resistance is being overcome.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
• “Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation” – Plato
• “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” – SorenKierkegaard
• “The only thing I know is that I know nothing” – Socrates
• “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong” – Bertrand Russell
• “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
• “Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.” – Henri Frederic Amiel

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.” – Henri Frederic Amiel

• “ Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel
• “The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it” – Epicurus
• “If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil” – Baruch Spinoza
• “Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower and draws all good things towards you.” – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• “The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.” – Daniel Dennett
• “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius
• “I think therefore I am” (“Cogito, ergo sum”) – René Descartes
• “Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one’s desires, but by the removal of desire.” – Epictetus
• “A day without laughter is a day wasted.” – Nicolas Chamfort

• “The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates
• “What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational” – G. W. F. Hege
• “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” – Lao Tsu
•  “Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.” – Immanuel Kant
• “It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth” – John Locke
• “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …” – Marcus Aurelius
• “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• “We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone” – St. Augustine
• “I can, therefore I am.” – Simone Weil

Final Thoughts on History’s Greatest Thinkers

History is undeniably filled with brilliant minds who have shaped the world with their philosophical ideas. Their ideas on morality, ethics, and the nature of reality continue to challenge and inspire us today.

They have paved the way for future generations to question, analyze, and seek truth. And their legacy will forever be etched in history, reminding us of the power of critical thinking and the pursuit of knowledge.

For more inspirational quotes, be sure to check out these blogs:

• 77 Determination Quotes to Inspire Your Persistence
• 65 Positive Affirmations to Overcome Fears in Life
• 100 Making Progress Quotes to Help You Succeed

Finally, if you want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life, then check out and recite these 57 affirmations for success .

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Supplement to Critical Thinking

This supplement elaborates on the history of the articulation, promotion and adoption of critical thinking as an educational goal.

John Dewey (1910: 74, 82) introduced the term ‘critical thinking’ as the name of an educational goal, which he identified with a scientific attitude of mind. More commonly, he called the goal ‘reflective thought’, ‘reflective thinking’, ‘reflection’, or just ‘thought’ or ‘thinking’. He describes his book as written for two purposes. The first was to help people to appreciate the kinship of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry to the scientific attitude. The second was to help people to consider how recognizing this kinship in educational practice “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (iii). He notes that the ideas in the book obtained concreteness in the Laboratory School in Chicago.

Dewey’s ideas were put into practice by some of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study in the 1930s sponsored by the Progressive Education Association in the United States. For this study, 300 colleges agreed to consider for admission graduates of 30 selected secondary schools or school systems from around the country who experimented with the content and methods of teaching, even if the graduates had not completed the then-prescribed secondary school curriculum. One purpose of the study was to discover through exploration and experimentation how secondary schools in the United States could serve youth more effectively (Aikin 1942). Each experimental school was free to change the curriculum as it saw fit, but the schools agreed that teaching methods and the life of the school should conform to the idea (previously advocated by Dewey) that people develop through doing things that are meaningful to them, and that the main purpose of the secondary school was to lead young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18). In particular, school officials believed that young people in a democracy should develop the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems (Aikin 1942: 81). Students’ work in the classroom thus consisted more often of a problem to be solved than a lesson to be learned. Especially in mathematics and science, the schools made a point of giving students experience in clear, logical thinking as they solved problems. The report of one experimental school, the University School of Ohio State University, articulated this goal of improving students’ thinking:

Critical or reflective thinking originates with the sensing of a problem. It is a quality of thought operating in an effort to solve the problem and to reach a tentative conclusion which is supported by all available data. It is really a process of problem solving requiring the use of creative insight, intellectual honesty, and sound judgment. It is the basis of the method of scientific inquiry. The success of democracy depends to a large extent on the disposition and ability of citizens to think critically and reflectively about the problems which must of necessity confront them, and to improve the quality of their thinking is one of the major goals of education. (Commission on the Relation of School and College of the Progressive Education Association 1943: 745–746)

The Eight-Year Study had an evaluation staff, which developed, in consultation with the schools, tests to measure aspects of student progress that fell outside the focus of the traditional curriculum. The evaluation staff classified many of the schools’ stated objectives under the generic heading “clear thinking” or “critical thinking” (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942: 35–36). To develop tests of achievement of this broad goal, they distinguished five overlapping aspects of it: ability to interpret data, abilities associated with an understanding of the nature of proof, and the abilities to apply principles of science, of social studies and of logical reasoning. The Eight-Year Study also had a college staff, directed by a committee of college administrators, whose task was to determine how well the experimental schools had prepared their graduates for college. The college staff compared the performance of 1,475 college students from the experimental schools with an equal number of graduates from conventional schools, matched in pairs by sex, age, race, scholastic aptitude scores, home and community background, interests, and probable future. They concluded that, on 18 measures of student success, the graduates of the experimental schools did a somewhat better job than the comparison group. The graduates from the six most traditional of the experimental schools showed no large or consistent differences. The graduates from the six most experimental schools, on the other hand, had much greater differences in their favour. The graduates of the two most experimental schools, the college staff reported:

… surpassed their comparison groups by wide margins in academic achievement, intellectual curiosity, scientific approach to problems, and interest in contemporary affairs. The differences in their favor were even greater in general resourcefulness, in enjoyment of reading, [in] participation in the arts, in winning non-academic honors, and in all aspects of college life except possibly participation in sports and social activities. (Aikin 1942: 114)

One of these schools was a private school with students from privileged families and the other the experimental section of a public school with students from non-privileged families. The college staff reported that the graduates of the two schools were indistinguishable from each other in terms of college success.

In 1933 Dewey issued an extensively rewritten edition of his How We Think (Dewey 1910), with the sub-title “A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process”. Although the restatement retains the basic structure and content of the original book, Dewey made a number of changes. He rewrote and simplified his logical analysis of the process of reflection, made his ideas clearer and more definite, replaced the terms ‘induction’ and ‘deduction’ by the phrases ‘control of data and evidence’ and ‘control of reasoning and concepts’, added more illustrations, rearranged chapters, and revised the parts on teaching to reflect changes in schools since 1910. In particular, he objected to one-sided practices of some “experimental” and “progressive” schools that allowed children freedom but gave them no guidance, citing as objectionable practices novelty and variety for their own sake, experiences and activities with real materials but of no educational significance, treating random and disconnected activity as if it were an experiment, failure to summarize net accomplishment at the end of an inquiry, non-educative projects, and treatment of the teacher as a negligible factor rather than as “the intellectual leader of a social group” (Dewey 1933: 273). Without explaining his reasons, Dewey eliminated the previous edition’s uses of the words ‘critical’ and ‘uncritical’, thus settling firmly on ‘reflection’ or ‘reflective thinking’ as the preferred term for his subject-matter. In the revised edition, the word ‘critical’ occurs only once, where Dewey writes that “a person may not be sufficiently critical about the ideas that occur to him” (1933: 16, italics in original); being critical is thus a component of reflection, not the whole of it. In contrast, the Eight-Year Study by the Progressive Education Association treated ‘critical thinking’ and ‘reflective thinking’ as synonyms.

In the same period, Dewey collaborated on a history of the Laboratory School in Chicago with two former teachers from the school (Mayhew & Edwards 1936). The history describes the school’s curriculum and organization, activities aimed at developing skills, parents’ involvement, and the habits of mind that the children acquired. A concluding chapter evaluates the school’s achievements, counting as a success its staging of the curriculum to correspond to the natural development of the growing child. In two appendices, the authors describe the evolution of Dewey’s principles of education and Dewey himself describes the theory of the Chicago experiment (Dewey 1936).

Glaser (1941) reports in his doctoral dissertation the method and results of an experiment in the development of critical thinking conducted in the fall of 1938. He defines critical thinking as Dewey defined reflective thinking:

Critical thinking calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Glaser 1941: 6; cf. Dewey 1910: 6; Dewey 1933: 9)

In the experiment, eight lesson units directed at improving critical thinking abilities were taught to four grade 12 high school classes, with pre-test and post-test of the students using the Otis Quick-Scoring Mental Ability Test and the Watson-Glaser Tests of Critical Thinking (developed in collaboration with Glaser’s dissertation sponsor, Goodwin Watson). The average gain in scores on these tests was greater to a statistically significant degree among the students who received the lessons in critical thinking than among the students in a control group of four grade 12 high school classes taking the usual curriculum in English. Glaser concludes:

The aspect of critical thinking which appears most susceptible to general improvement is the attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one’s experience. An attitude of wanting evidence for beliefs is more subject to general transfer. Development of skill in applying the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, however, appears to be specifically related to, and in fact limited by, the acquisition of pertinent knowledge and facts concerning the problem or subject matter toward which the thinking is to be directed. (Glaser 1941: 175)

Retest scores and observable behaviour indicated that students in the intervention group retained their growth in ability to think critically for at least six months after the special instruction.

In 1948 a group of U.S. college examiners decided to develop taxonomies of educational objectives with a common vocabulary that they could use for communicating with each other about test items. The first of these taxonomies, for the cognitive domain, appeared in 1956 (Bloom et al. 1956), and included critical thinking objectives. It has become known as Bloom’s taxonomy. A second taxonomy, for the affective domain (Krathwohl, Bloom, & Masia 1964), and a third taxonomy, for the psychomotor domain (Simpson 1966–67), appeared later. Each of the taxonomies is hierarchical, with achievement of a higher educational objective alleged to require achievement of corresponding lower educational objectives.

Bloom’s taxonomy has six major categories. From lowest to highest, they are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Within each category, there are sub-categories, also arranged hierarchically from the educationally prior to the educationally posterior. The lowest category, though called ‘knowledge’, is confined to objectives of remembering information and being able to recall or recognize it, without much transformation beyond organizing it (Bloom et al. 1956: 28–29). The five higher categories are collectively termed “intellectual abilities and skills” (Bloom et al. 1956: 204). The term is simply another name for critical thinking abilities and skills:

Although information or knowledge is recognized as an important outcome of education, very few teachers would be satisfied to regard this as the primary or the sole outcome of instruction. What is needed is some evidence that the students can do something with their knowledge, that is, that they can apply the information to new situations and problems. It is also expected that students will acquire generalized techniques for dealing with new problems and new materials. Thus, it is expected that when the student encounters a new problem or situation, he will select an appropriate technique for attacking it and will bring to bear the necessary information, both facts and principles. This has been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others. In the taxonomy, we have used the term “intellectual abilities and skills”. (Bloom et al. 1956: 38)

Comprehension and application objectives, as their names imply, involve understanding and applying information. Critical thinking abilities and skills show up in the three highest categories of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The condensed version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom et al. 1956: 201–207) gives the following examples of objectives at these levels:

• analysis objectives : ability to recognize unstated assumptions, ability to check the consistency of hypotheses with given information and assumptions, ability to recognize the general techniques used in advertising, propaganda and other persuasive materials
• synthesis objectives : organizing ideas and statements in writing, ability to propose ways of testing a hypothesis, ability to formulate and modify hypotheses
• evaluation objectives : ability to indicate logical fallacies, comparison of major theories about particular cultures

The analysis, synthesis and evaluation objectives in Bloom’s taxonomy collectively came to be called the “higher-order thinking skills” (Tankersley 2005: chap. 5). Although the analysis-synthesis-evaluation sequence mimics phases in Dewey’s (1933) logical analysis of the reflective thinking process, it has not generally been adopted as a model of a critical thinking process. While commending the inspirational value of its ratio of five categories of thinking objectives to one category of recall objectives, Ennis (1981b) points out that the categories lack criteria applicable across topics and domains. For example, analysis in chemistry is so different from analysis in literature that there is not much point in teaching analysis as a general type of thinking. Further, the postulated hierarchy seems questionable at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. For example, ability to indicate logical fallacies hardly seems more complex than the ability to organize statements and ideas in writing.

A revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) distinguishes the intended cognitive process in an educational objective (such as being able to recall, to compare or to check) from the objective’s informational content (“knowledge”), which may be factual, conceptual, procedural, or metacognitive. The result is a so-called “Taxonomy Table” with four rows for the kinds of informational content and six columns for the six main types of cognitive process. The authors name the types of cognitive process by verbs, to indicate their status as mental activities. They change the name of the ‘comprehension’ category to ‘understand’ and of the ‘synthesis’ category to ’create’, and switch the order of synthesis and evaluation. The result is a list of six main types of cognitive process aimed at by teachers: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. The authors retain the idea of a hierarchy of increasing complexity, but acknowledge some overlap, for example between understanding and applying. And they retain the idea that critical thinking and problem solving cut across the more complex cognitive processes. The terms ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’, they write:

are widely used and tend to become touchstones of curriculum emphasis. Both generally include a variety of activities that might be classified in disparate cells of the Taxonomy Table. That is, in any given instance, objectives that involve problem solving and critical thinking most likely call for cognitive processes in several categories on the process dimension. For example, to think critically about an issue probably involves some Conceptual knowledge to Analyze the issue. Then, one can Evaluate different perspectives in terms of the criteria and, perhaps, Create a novel, yet defensible perspective on this issue. (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270; italics in original)

In the revised taxonomy, only a few sub-categories, such as inferring, have enough commonality to be treated as a distinct critical thinking ability that could be taught and assessed as a general ability.

A landmark contribution to philosophical scholarship on the concept of critical thinking was a 1962 article in the Harvard Educational Review by Robert H. Ennis, with the title “A concept of critical thinking: A proposed basis for research in the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability” (Ennis 1962). Ennis took as his starting-point a conception of critical thinking put forward by B. Othanel Smith:

We shall consider thinking in terms of the operations involved in the examination of statements which we, or others, may believe. A speaker declares, for example, that “Freedom means that the decisions in America’s productive effort are made not in the minds of a bureaucracy but in the free market”. Now if we set about to find out what this statement means and to determine whether to accept or reject it, we would be engaged in thinking which, for lack of a better term, we shall call critical thinking. If one wishes to say that this is only a form of problem-solving in which the purpose is to decide whether or not what is said is dependable, we shall not object. But for our purposes we choose to call it critical thinking. (Smith 1953: 130)

Adding a normative component to this conception, Ennis defined critical thinking as “the correct assessing of statements” (Ennis 1962: 83). On the basis of this definition, he distinguished 12 “aspects” of critical thinking corresponding to types or aspects of statements, such as judging whether an observation statement is reliable and grasping the meaning of a statement. He noted that he did not include judging value statements. Cutting across the 12 aspects, he distinguished three dimensions of critical thinking: logical (judging relationships between meanings of words and statements), criterial (knowledge of the criteria for judging statements), and pragmatic (the impression of the background purpose). For each aspect, Ennis described the applicable dimensions, including criteria. He proposed the resulting construct as a basis for developing specifications for critical thinking tests and for research on instructional methods and levels.

In the 1970s and 1980s there was an upsurge of attention to the development of thinking skills. The annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform has attracted since its start in 1980 tens of thousands of educators from all levels. In 1983 the College Entrance Examination Board proclaimed reasoning as one of six basic academic competencies needed by college students (College Board 1983). Departments of education in the United States and around the world began to include thinking objectives in their curriculum guidelines for school subjects. For example, Ontario’s social sciences and humanities curriculum guideline for secondary schools requires “the use of critical and creative thinking skills and/or processes” as a goal of instruction and assessment in each subject and course (Ontario Ministry of Education 2013: 30). The document describes critical thinking as follows:

Critical thinking is the process of thinking about ideas or situations in order to understand them fully, identify their implications, make a judgement, and/or guide decision making. Critical thinking includes skills such as questioning, predicting, analysing, synthesizing, examining opinions, identifying values and issues, detecting bias, and distinguishing between alternatives. Students who are taught these skills become critical thinkers who can move beyond superficial conclusions to a deeper understanding of the issues they are examining. They are able to engage in an inquiry process in which they explore complex and multifaceted issues, and questions for which there may be no clear-cut answers (Ontario Ministry of Education 2013: 46).

Sweden makes schools responsible for ensuring that each pupil who completes compulsory school “can make use of critical thinking and independently formulate standpoints based on knowledge and ethical considerations” (Skolverket 2018: 12). Subject syllabi incorporate this requirement, and items testing critical thinking skills appear on national tests that are a required step toward university admission. For example, the core content of biology, physics and chemistry in years 7-9 includes critical examination of sources of information and arguments encountered by pupils in different sources and social discussions related to these sciences, in both digital and other media. (Skolverket 2018: 170, 181, 192). Correspondingly, in year 9 the national tests require using knowledge of biology, physics or chemistry “to investigate information, communicate and come to a decision on issues concerning health, energy, technology, the environment, use of natural resources and ecological sustainability” (see the message from the School Board ). Other jurisdictions similarly embed critical thinking objectives in curriculum guidelines.

At the college level, a new wave of introductory logic textbooks, pioneered by Kahane (1971), applied the tools of logic to contemporary social and political issues. Popular contemporary textbooks of this sort include those by Bailin and Battersby (2016b), Boardman, Cavender and Kahane (2018), Browne and Keeley (2018), Groarke and Tindale (2012), and Moore and Parker (2020). In their wake, colleges and universities in North America transformed their introductory logic course into a general education service course with a title like ‘critical thinking’ or ‘reasoning’. In 1980, the trustees of California’s state university and colleges approved as a general education requirement a course in critical thinking, described as follows:

Instruction in critical thinking is to be designed to achieve an understanding of the relationship of language to logic, which should lead to the ability to analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas, to reason inductively and deductively, and to reach factual or judgmental conclusions based on sound inferences drawn from unambiguous statements of knowledge or belief. The minimal competence to be expected at the successful conclusion of instruction in critical thinking should be the ability to distinguish fact from judgment, belief from knowledge, and skills in elementary inductive and deductive processes, including an understanding of the formal and informal fallacies of language and thought. (Dumke 1980)

Since December 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions at the three annual divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association. In December 1987, the Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association invited Peter Facione to make a systematic inquiry into the current state of critical thinking and critical thinking assessment. Facione assembled a group of 46 other academic philosophers and psychologists to participate in a multi-round Delphi process, whose product was entitled Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction (Facione 1990a). The statement listed abilities and dispositions that should be the goals of a lower-level undergraduate course in critical thinking. Researchers in nine European countries determined which of these skills and dispositions employers expect of university graduates (Dominguez 2018 a), compared those expectations to critical thinking educational practices in post-secondary educational institutions (Dominguez 2018b), developed a course on critical thinking education for university teachers (Dominguez 2018c) and proposed in response to identified gaps between expectations and practices an “educational protocol” that post-secondary educational institutions in Europe could use to develop critical thinking (Elen et al. 2019).

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Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old critical thinking quotes, critical thinking sayings, and critical thinking proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity Josh Lanyon

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. Christopher Hitchens

The purpose of critical thinking is rethinking: that is, reviewing, evaluating, and revising thought. Jon Stratton

Critical thinking relies on content, because you can't navigate masses of information if you have nothing to navigate to. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

We seem to have trouble with critical thinking. And our political system doesn't help. Barack Obama

Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The insecure leader will interpret critical thinking as critiscism. Andy Stanley

Critical Thinking has the potential to be a deeply creative process. Pearl Zhu

You have a brain and mind of your own. Use it, and reach your own decisions. Napoleon Hill

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it. Henry Ford

We put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking. Susan Cain

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. Voltaire

Negative thinking creates clouds at critical decision times. John C. Maxwell

Ignorance is always ready to admire itself. Procure yourself critical friends. Nicolas Boileau

For students, the evolution-creation discussion can be a useful exercise, for it can help develop their critical thinking skills. Ken Ham

All of the common core standards stuff about critical reading and critical thinking and so on can only be positive. James W. Loewen

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you. Richard Dawkins

Believe what you like, but don't believe everything you read without questioning it. Pauline Baynes

It's sort of a mental attitude about critical thinking and curiosity. It's about mindset of looking at the world in a playful and curious and creative way. Adam Savage

You need to answer questions on where, when and what to do Sunday Adelaja

Simply disabling specific critical thinking skills is all that is necessary for the god virus to take control of a person. Darrel Ray

The most fundamental attack on freedom is the attack on critical thinking skills. Travis Nichols

To some people critical thinking means you mustn't be critical of them only others Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

There is nothing more Islamic than critical thinking. Tariq Ramadan

Instead of complaining, discover ways, tactics and tricks on how to reach out to people Sunday Adelaja

Losing your job releases you to think effectively and make rational decisions Sunday Adelaja

The ability to reflect is associated with critical thinking and reasoning ability. And the capacity to be alone is one of the highest levels of development. It's important to know how to self-soothe and be confident of other people's love even when they're not there in front of you. Laurie Helgoe

Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Critical thinking is to a liberal education as faith is to religion. ... the converse was true also - faith is to a liberal education as critical thinking is to religion, irrelevant and even damaging. Jane Smiley

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

Critical thinking is what leads to the next breakthroughs in any area. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff

It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical Boris Yeltsin

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. Roger Lewin

Learn to use your brain power. Critical thinking is the key to creative problem solving in business. Richard Branson

What I'm looking for in my interaction is critical thinking on the part of the person pitching to me. Brad Feld

Discourse and critical thinking are essential tools when it comes to securing progress in a democratic society. But in the end, unity and engaged participation are what make it happen. Aberjhani

To learn that it's easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself. Neil deGrasse Tyson

In unanimity there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking. Donald Rumsfeld

Keeping an open mind is a virtue, but not so open that your brains fall out. Bertrand Russell

Thinking isn't to agree or disagree-that's voting. Robert Frost

Where all men think alike, no man thinks very much. Walter Lippmann

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. Thomas A. Edison

Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live. Alexander Herzen

A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as his brain. Thoreau

Our is an age which is proud of machines that think, and suspicious of the men who try to. Howard Mumford Jones

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. Alfred Korzybski

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. Goethe

Life always gives you plenty to think about, but seldom enough to think with. Evan Esar

The more we think of some people, the less we think of them. Evan Esar

For every man who is always telling you what he thinks, there is another who is always telling you what others think. Evan Esar

Many a man who thinks he is thinking, is merely digesting yesterday's newspaper. Evan Esar

Your way of thinking starts with individual thoughts, whether good, bad or ugly. John A. Andrews

I refused to let small thinking chart my course in life. John A. Andrews

If we think with a mindset of giving, we entertain abundance, and if we think with an attitude of withholding, we invite lack. As the source gives to the stream so ought the stream to impart to the ocean. John A. Andrews

Critical thinking involves first discovering the who, what, when, and how of things. Bell Hooks

Critical thinkers are clear as to the purpose at hand and the question at issue. Bell Hooks

Critical thinking is an interactive process, one that demands participation on the part of teacher and students alike. Bell Hooks

Keeping an open mind is an essential requirement of critical thinking. Bell Hooks

Critical thinking requires us to use our imagination, seeing things from perspectives other than our own and envisioning the likely consequences of our position. Bell Hooks

We all use thinking skills everyday to help us learn, make decisions, and solve problems. Ellie Weiler

Critical thinking skills are the foundation for all other types of learning. Ellie Weiler

Unlike current events, thinking skills never change. Ellie Weiler

Once thinking skills are mastered, students are able to tackle new challenges with the ability to think them through and discover solutions. Ellie Weiler

Critical thinking is essential as a tool of inquiry. Aveyard

Critical thinking is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in one's personal and civic life. Aveyard

While not synonymous with good thinking, critical thinking is a pervasive and self-rectifying human phenomenon. Aveyard

Critical thinkers are able to look for flaws in argument and resist claims that have no support. Aveyard

Critical thinkers are more likely to engage in productive and positive activity due to their continual questioning of their knowledge, assumptions and perspectives. Aveyard

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Sources of Insight

Unleash Your Greatest Potential

Great Thinking Quotes

“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”— Voltaire

Your thoughts can shape your feelings can shape your actions.

Thinking is powerful stuff whether you’re shaping your moment or shaping your lifetime.

The real beauty is that thinking is a skill, and you can develop throughout your lifetime.

To build our thinking skills, we can draw from the wisdom of the ages and modern sages.  And quotes are one of the best ways to do that.

Whether it’s positive thinking quotes, or critical thinking quotes, there are so many words of wisdom and sayings that make us think.

How Your Thoughts Shape Your Destiny

Perhaps one of the most powerful thoughts on thinking is this …

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. 

Watch your words, for they become actions. 

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” – Unknown

Now, let’s turn wisdom into action and fill your quiver with arrows of action, and fill your mental toolbox with a garden of insight in the form of pithy prose, one-liner reminders, and quotable quotes.

To make the most of these thinking quotes, see if you can find three thinking quotes that you can use in some way or at least make you think.

There are no right answers here, only growth and greatness.

Here’s to your excellence.

Top 10 Quotes on Thinking

• “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” — William James
• “Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.” — Thomas Szasz
• “ Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?” — Winnie the Pooh
• “Few minds wear out; more rust out.” — Christian N. Bovee
• “ It is well for people who think, to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean.” — Luther Burbank
• “Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” — Benjamin Lee Whorf
• “Misery is almost always the result of thinking.” — Joseph Joubert
• “Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.” — Edward de Bono
• “Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.” —  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “What we think, we become.” — Buddha

While that’s a useful bunch to have under your belt, and you may have heard of many of these before, now take a waltz through the garden below and be sure to stop and smell the thinking quotes that bloom brightest for you.

Best Quotes on Thinking

Here is a collection of thinking quotes from A – Z for your browsing pleasure …

“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.”

— Jerry Seinfeld

“ A good listener is usually thinking about something else.”

— Kin Hubbard

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

— William James

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”

— Thomas Paine

“A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

— Oscar Wilde

“An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.”

— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

“A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.”

— Tony Robbins

“A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“And these little things may not seem like much but after a while they take you off on a direction where you may be a long way off from what other people have been thinking about.”

— Roger Penrose

“And we’re seeing a higher level of consciousness and many more opportunities for people to challenge their present ways of thinking and move into a grander and larger experience of who they really are.”

— Neale Donald Walsch

“Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”

— Albert Einstein

“ As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.”

— John Maxwell

“At a certain age some people’s minds close up; they live on their intellectual fat.”

–William Lyon Phelps

“Begin challenging your own assumptions.  Your assumptions are your windows on the world.  Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.”

— Alan Alda

“Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”

— Buckminster Fuller

“Believing is easier than thinking.  Hence so many more believers than thinkers.”

— Bruce Calvert

“Better to be without logic than without feeling.”

— Charlotte Bronte

“Building art is a synthesis of life in materialized form. We should try to bring in under the same hat not a splintered way of thinking, but all in harmony together.”

— Alvar Aalto

“Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.”

— Thomas Szasz

“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”

— Winnie the Pooh

“Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.”

— Arthur Miller

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.”

— Ray Bradbury

“Doubt is not a pleasant state of mind, but certainty is absurd.”

— Voltaire

“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”

— Niels Bohr

“Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”

— Khalil Gibran

“Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Few minds wear out; more rust out.”

— Christian N. Bovee

“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“Get into a line that you will find to be a deep personal interest, something you really enjoy spending twelve to fifteen hours a day working at, and the rest of the time thinking about.”

— Earl Nightingale

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

— Rick Warren

“I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

“I am not what I think. I am thinking what I think.”

— Eric Butterworth

“I began to realize that thinking itself is nothing but the process of asking and answering questions.”

“I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth’s follies – thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us.”

— David Herbert Lawrence

“I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

“I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.”

— Bob Dylan

“I grew up thinking that whatever I wanted to do, I could do.”

— Victoria Principal

“I have a different way of thinking. I think synergistically. I’m not linear in thinking, I’m not very logical.”

— Imelda Marcos

“I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me – shapes and ideas so near to me – so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down.”

— Georgia O’Keeffe

“I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

“I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.”

— Donald Trump

“ I like to think of thoughts as living blossoms borne by the human tree.”

— James Douglas

“I like what the future holds. I don’t like thinking about the past.”

— John Cale

“I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.”

— Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study.”

— Xun Zi

“I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.”

— Billy Joel

“I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.”

— Joan Rivers

“I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”

—  Albert Einstein

“I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.”

— Harold Kushner

“ I was thinking that we all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.”

— Peter De Vries

“I’m against fashionable thinking.”

— Herman Kahn

“I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.”

— David Bowie

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”

— George S. Patton

“If I look confused it is because I am thinking.”

— Samuel Goldwyn

“If the track is tough and the hill is rough, thinking you can just ain’t enough!”

— Shel Silverstein

“If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don’t do it, and it won’t happen.”

— Desiderius Erasmus

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”

—  C.S. Lewis

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”

— Bruce Lee

“In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”

— Lao Tzu

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”

— James Thurber

“It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost.”

— Richard Bach

“It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.”

— William Shakespeare

“It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.”

— Stephen Hawking

“It is well for people who think, to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean.”

— Luther Burbank

“It’s not the events that shape my life that determine how I feel and act, but, rather, it’s the way I interpret and evaluate my life experiences.”

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”

“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.”

— Benjamin Lee Whorf

“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”

— Winston Churchill

“Let your performance do the thinking.”

“Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.”

“Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.”

— Audrey Hepburn

“Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.”

— Mason Cooley

“ Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“ Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.”

“Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.”

— Mohandas Gandhi

“Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”

— Blaise Pascal

“Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.”

— Virginia Woolf

“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.”

“Men always do leave off really thinking, when the last bit of wild animal dies in them.”

“Men can live without air a few minutes, without water for about two weeks, without food for about two months – and without a new thought for years on end.”

— Kent Ruth

“Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.”

“Misery is almost always the result of thinking.”

— Joseph Joubert

“Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.”

— Aldous Huxley

“Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.”

— Edward de Bono

“Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.”

— Carlos Santana

“Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.”

—  Henry Louis Mencken

“My definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.”

— Billy Connolly

“My hand is the extension of the thinking process – the creative process.”

— Tadao Ando

“My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

“No amount of energy will take the place of thought.  A strenuous life with its eyes shut is a kind of wild insanity.”

— Henry Van Dyke

“No matter where you go or what you do, you live your entire life within the confines of your head.” — Terry Josephson

“No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking.”

— J. P. Morgan

“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”

“Nothing comes merely by thinking about it.”

— John Wanamaker

“Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.”

— G.C. Lichtenberg

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”

— Carl G. Jung

“One ought to look a good deal at oneself before thinking of condemning others.”

“Opinion is that exercise of the human will which helps us to make a decision without information.”

— John Erskine

“Our job is not to make up anybody’s mind, but to open minds and to make the agony of the decision-making so intense you can escape only by thinking.”

— Anonymous

“Our minds are lazier than our bodies.”

— François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

“Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear-based.”

— Deepak Chopra

“ Ours is the age which is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to.”

— Howard Mumford Jones

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

“People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.”

—  Anthony de Mello

“People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.”

— George Carlin

“Physiological response to thinking and to pain is the same; and man is not given to hurting himself.”

— Martin H. Fischer

“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” — Zig Ziglar

“Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve started to think of failure.”

— Tommy Lasorda

“Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.”

— Baruch Spinoza

“Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.”

— Karl Von Clausewitz

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

— John Locke

“Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”

— Edmund Burke

“Romance is thinking about your significant other, when you are supposed to be thinking about something else.”

— Nicholas Sparks

“ Sad people dislike the happy, and the happy the sad; the quick thinking the sedate, and the careless the busy and industrious.”

“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.”

— Carl Sagan

“Self-worth comes from one thing – thinking that you are worthy.”

— Wayne Dyer

“Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.”

“Some people get lost in thought because it’s such unfamiliar territory.”

— G. Behn

“Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.”

— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor’s New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations.”

“Sometimes I think and other times I am.”

— Paul Valéry

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

— Bill Gates

“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.”

— Napoleon Bonaparte

“Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.”

— Joseph Addison

“The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.”

— Norbet Platt

“ The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life.  The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clichés.”

— H.L. Mencken

“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.”

— David Ogilvy

“The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.”

— Thomas A. Edison

“ The best way of forgetting how you think you feel is to concentrate on what you know you know.”

— Mary Stewart

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

“The forceps of our minds are clumsy things and crush the truth a little in the course of taking hold of it.”

— H.G. Wells

“The ‘how’ thinker gets problems solved effectively because he wastes no time with futile ‘ifs’.”

—  Norman Vincent Peale

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

— Alice Walker

“The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”

— Martin Heidegger

“ The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.”

— Robert H. Schuller

“ The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“The secret of living a life of excellence is merely a matter of thinking thoughts of excellence. Really, it’s a matter of programming our minds with the kind of information that will set us free.”

— Charles R. Swindoll

“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.”

— A. A. Milne

“The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.”

“The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.”

— Will Durant

“ The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.”

— Samuel Johnson

“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.”

“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”

“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

“There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.”

“ There are some days I practice positive thinking, and other days I’m not positive I am thinking.”

— John M. Eades

“There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord.”

“There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.”

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.”

— Paramahansa Yogananda

“There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.”

— Clarence Day

“ There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.”

“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.” – Voltaire

“Thinking about the universe has now been handed over to specialists. The rest of us merely read about it.”

— Mason Cooley

“Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought.”

“Thinking in its lower grades is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry.”

— Havelock Ellis

“Thinking is like loving and dying.  Each of us must do it for himself.”

— Josiah Royce

“Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“ Thinking is one thing no one has ever been able to tax.”

— Charles Kettering

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”

— Henry Ford

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”

“Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.”

— Robert Frost

“Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.”

— W. Clement Stone

“ Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.”

“Those who know how to think need no teachers.”

“Thought is action in rehearsal.” — Anonymous“Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.”

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Thoughts lead on to purpose, purpose leads on to actions, actions form habits, habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny.”

— Tryon Edwards

“Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man.  But they don’t bite everybody.”

— Stanislaw Lec

“To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.”

“To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.”

— Og Mandino

“ To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.”

— William Hazlitt

“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

— John F. Kennedy

“Try not thinking of peeling an orange. Try not imagining the juice running down your fingers, the soft inner part of the peel. The smell. Try and you can’t. The brain doesn’t process negatives.”

— Doug Coupland

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

— Marcus Aurelius

“We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.”

—  Buddha

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

“We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.”

— Albert Camus

“We teach people that they upset themselves. We can’t change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.”

— Albert Ellis

“What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.”

“When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.”

— Abraham Lincoln

“ When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”

“ When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.”

— John Adams

“When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.”

“ When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”

— Joseph Campbell

“When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”

— Carter G. Woodson

“ Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.”

“Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.”

— William Zinsser

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

— Isaac Asimov

“You and I are not what we eat; we are what we think.”

— Walter Anderson

“You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.”

—  Tom Brokaw

“You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see.”

“You must continue to gain expertise, but avoid thinking like an expert.”

— Denis Waitley

“You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.”

— J. K. Rowling

“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

— Alan Watts

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12 Inspiring Critical Thinking Quotes For Students

A birdie flies sans inhibitions, and so must you. But first, you must know where you wish to fly. One’s moods and behaviors are both influenced by one’s thinking. Whether you’re shaping a student’s moments or a lifetime, thinking is a powerful tool. The actual fun is that you can learn to think better throughout the course of your lifetime since it is a skill.

We can learn from the age-old knowledge and the contemporary sages to improve our thinking abilities. And one of the finest ways to achieve that is using “ quotes ”. There are a lot of wise words and proverbs that get us thinking, whether they be positive thinking quotes or critical thinking quotes. Perhaps one of the most powerful thoughts on thinking is this… “Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become who you are.”

Critical thinking for students – Who’s job is it?

Research reveals several essential findings. Despite widespread agreement that critical thinking is important, most individuals feel that schools do not do enough to help students develop their critical thinking skills.

Nearly 95% of people agree that critical thinking abilities are vital in today’s world, and favor more critical thinking across nearly every demographic characteristic. Nevertheless, many individuals are concerned that our schools do not teach sophisticated ways of thinking, and nearly 80% of respondents believe that young people lack the capacity for critical thought. Only 29% of respondents claim to have categorically studied critical thinking at school.

It’s unclear when, when, and even how critical thinking instruction should take place. A little over half of the parents surveyed believe that it is their responsibility to instill critical thinking in their children. Another 41% think that educators should be in charge of imparting critical thinking skills to young people. Another 22% think that kids should be in charge of their own behavior.

Critical thinking at school

A teacher’s influence on a student extends beyond just imparting a top-notch education.

You serve as a leader, mentor, coach, advisor, and promoter of growth. Since students spend so much time in your classroom, it is up to you and your co-workers in education to create an environment where students can be themselves and accomplish their best work.

Posters with inspirational quotes are a great approach to make your classroom immediately seem more upbeat. Famous writers, innovators, and other personalities have left us with a wealth of inspiring quotations on learning and achievement. After choosing your favorite motivational sayings, you can utilize them to make your own low-cost classroom posters.

What words weigh

The proverb “actions speak louder than words” is certainly familiar to you, but it’s not always the case. Each of us has the ability to sway someone with our words.

Numerous research has revealed the advantages and disadvantages associated with particular terms. Dr. Susan Smalley, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioural sciences at UCLA, stated that “individuals [who] read words of ‘loving kindness’ showed an increase in self-compassion, improved mood, and reduced anxiety.”

If we think back to times we’ve heard inspirational words, we remember how good and motivated we felt after. To get in the habit of choosing our words wisely and with positive intent, we can put reminders around us.

Below is a rundown of some thought-provoking critical thinking quotes that are fit and fun to read for students and mentors alike:

Critical thinking quotes for students

1. “the important thing is not to stop questioning. curiosity has its own reason for existing.” — albert einstein.

Few men in history have had the critical thinking skills of Albert Einstein. One of the characteristics of extremely competent critical thinkers is their inherent curiosity. With that curiosity comes the practice of questioning to explore, discover, and reveal. This is why through using essential and herding questions in our teaching, we drive learners’ curiosity by engaging them in exploring a topic through questions that begin big and get increasingly specific as more discoveries are made. This piece of wisdom is a pearl for dyslexic and non-dyslexic students alike.

2. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – Oscar Wilde

No, narcissism doesn’t say that. According to the saying, you must reawaken your love for yourself so that it last forever. To teach students anything , it is essential you teach them to love themselves first. Once you can do that, no one will be able to undermine your confidence and knock you down. Your own best critic would be you. The days of seeking emotional support from others and relying on them to maintain one’s mental health would be gone.

3. “You have a brain and mind of your own. Use it, and reach your own decisions.” — Napoleon Hill

The ability to think independently is one of the critical thinking’s most important characteristics. Without giving anything much thought, believing or agreeing is simple. However, when we make the decision to think for ourselves, we exercise a human right and a duty we have as citizens of the world. Independent thought is labor-intensive, but the benefits are incalculable. One benefit is that it provides various viewpoints and perspectives, which can be instructive. Another benefit of independent thought is that it inspires us to stand up for what we believe in and have confidence in our capacity to make the best decisions for ourselves.

4. “If you are going through hell, keep going.” — Sir Winston Churchill

This pearl of knowledge has lasting ramifications for the lives of all learners, young and old, within and outside of the classroom. Nothing can be endured indefinitely. Everything changes at some point in time. Life is a roller coaster ride that goes through ups and downs in cycles. When difficult times hit you, as a young student, it’s normal to feel discouraged, but you need to realize that they won’t last forever and that you need to keep at it until you’re there.

Hold hands, unite, and proceed through it. And you are never alone in the larger scheme of things.

5. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” —Aristotle

According to cognition scientists, the average person has between 60,000 and 80,000 ideas per day, or a few thousand thoughts every hour. Thus, thinking critically entails evaluating ideas that have significance and tossing out or dismissing ideas that don’t. Let’s say that when you leave the house, you leave the iron on. You recall that you left it on as you’re driving out the driveway, so you go back inside to turn it off. Or does your day proceed as usual? Here is what might follow:

“That was so foolish, I could have set the house on fire.”

“What if, after preparing breakfast, I forget to turn the burner off? Children will burn their hands off!

“When my spouse or wife learns about it, what will they think?”

“Am I aging faster?”

We refer to this as “sharing our tale.” The stories we tell ourselves, however, are not the facts. The fact is you left the iron on, remembered because you’re smart, turned it off, and diverted a disaster. Additionally, now that you’ve learned from this experience, you’ll be more conscientious next time, and your family may also pick up on your good habits. That’s the path of the critical thinker.

6. “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.” — Charles Bukowski

Life is designed to be an experimentation ground. To think critically, you must first understand that one cannot think with boundaries around them. Consider also that curiosity is like exercise for the brain, combatting boredom and stagnation by making the brain more active and energized. The student cannot and should not think amid their safe, familiar bubbles and be pushed to explore. It is only in that experimentation you realize what you are worthy of. One would then become ecstatic, ecstatic by coming to a step closer to the meaning of life. It is that ecstasy that would madden you, help you grow and it will be totally worth it.

7. “Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.” — Francis Bacon

One must be genuinely able to read anything without immediately taking it to heart because there are so many opinions and points of view in the world that are freely communicated through both online and offline means. Thus, developing analytical reading skills in our students is important. Encouraging children to think critically while they read is one thing we can do for them in this vein. The purpose for this is simple; not only does it cultivate independent critical thinking skills, but it helps students enjoy reading more. Rather than passively consuming the words they read, they are questioning and observing, looking for hidden meanings, recognizing patterns and relations to experiences they’ve had, and more.

8. “My father used to say ‘Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.”— Desmond Tutu

This can occur when a person who wasn’t nearly as informed as they thought is suddenly confronted with evidence that contradicts their strongly held beliefs. This may be concerning because our opinions are significant to us and help to define who we are. As a result, this person may respond hastily and out of fear; their natural tendency is to shout louder to drown out the offensive opponent. That is not how critical thinkers operate. Instead, they come prepared to open discussions with a solid bedrock of knowledge and experience to rest on about the discussion topic. They’ll listen openly to the views of others and consider anything that another’s perspective may have to teach them, and share in any and all discussions as constructively as possible.

9. “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” —Augustine of Hippe

In the past, or in the future, righteousness has never depended on its adherents. Even if just a small portion of a population supports it, what is right must remain right. Not everyone has the strength to follow the correct route since it is less appealing than the other one. And more people will always be drawn to what is attractive and simple. For students and for them to adhere to critical thinking, it is essential they first abide by and think about what’s right.

10. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” — Albert Einstein

It is an unavoidable fact that not everyone has potential that is similar to another person. A student’s ability is facilitated by their environment, society, and upbringing, which helps them see their value. Every student is capable of thinking, but also has his own special abilities that must be nourished, nurtured, and garnered.

11.“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” — Jimmy Johnson

Students rather are distinguished from the commonplace and be viewed as extraordinary. They must therefore ask themselves, “Have we really made that extra effort that would make us the latter?” today. When someone gives up the impulse to always take the easy route and instead makes the necessary extra effort, they become special.

12. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost

There is no way to succeed in life and climb above the rat race by adhering to it. You must possess the courage to travel the less traveled route. It is important to inculcate in the students that someday, they could be a pioneer in a field that they wouldn’t become aware of until years later. Fear keeps you from stepping into an unfamiliar environment. Once you let go of it there would be nothing holding you back.

Both you and your students deserve to hear all the uplifting and motivating things that are said.

With a bouquet of flowers, make sure to send these thoughtful quotes to a friend or family member who might or might not be a student as a way to express care and the importance of critical thinking.

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having  just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of  Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’, 

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Famous Quotes Related to Critical Thinking

"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts." - William Bruce Cameron (often falsely attributed to Albert Einstein)

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence." - Samuel Johnson

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

"The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." - Derek Bok

"It is today we must create the world of the future." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." - Robert Maynard Hutchins

"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it." - William Haley, British Editor

"Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time." - Hebrew Proverb

"Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." - Roger Lewin

"The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." - Henri Bergson, French Philosopher and Educator "If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right." - MARY KAY ASH, American businesswoman

"The man who can make hard things easy is the educator." - RALPH WALDO EMERSON, American writer and philosopher

"Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them." - LADY BIRD JOHNSON, Former First Lady of the United States

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." - HENRI BERGSON, French Philosopher and Educator

"The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life." - PLATO, Greek Philosopher

"With a smile we should instruct our youth..." - JEAN BAPTISTE MOLIERE, French Playwright

"Children are not vessels to be filled but lamps to be lit." - SWAMI CHINMAYANANDA, Indian Spiritual Leader

"Genius without an education is like silver in the mine." - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, American Diplomat, Scientist, and Writer

"Education must not simply teach work—it must teach life." - W.E.B. DU BOIS, American Civil Rights Leader and Writer

"Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts." - NIKKI GIOVANNI, American poet

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism." - COLLEEN WILCOX, American school administrator

"Those of us who are in this world to educate—to care for—young children have a special calling: a calling that has very little to do with the collection of expensive possessions but has a lot to do with worth inside of heads and hearts." - FRED M. ROGERS, Host of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

"Each student is a unique person and a powerful learner capable of great achievements. I truly marvel at my students' capacity for learning, accomplishment, and growth." - MICHELLE FORMAN, American National Teacher of the Year 2001

"The one real goal of education is to leave a person asking questions." - MAX BEERHOHM, British Critic, Essayist, and Caricaturist "Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - JOHN F. KENNEDY

"Out of the questions of students come most of the creative ideas and discoveries." - Ellen Langer

"Invest a few moments in thinking. It will pay good interest." - Author Unknown

"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." - CHINESE PROVERB

"No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. We need to see the world anew." - ALBERT EINSTEIN

"The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein

"Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used." - Carl Sagan

"There is nothing more uncommon than common sense." - FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

"Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." - ROGER LEWIN, Ph.D., British anthropologist and science writer

"Time given to thought is the greatest time saver of all." - Norman Cousins

"No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof." - Henry David Thoreau

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." - John Cotton Dana

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too" - Voltaire

"Reason obeys itself: ignorance submits to what is dictated to it." - Thomas Paine

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one learned in school." - Albert Einstein

5 Critical Thinking Quotes That Will Instantly Sharpen Your Mind

Anthony metivier.

• May 5, 2021

Let’s fix that right now.

I taught critical thinking for four years and here are some of the quotes I’ve never forgotten.

They helped me improve my thinking and many others too.

Let’s dive in.

The 5 Best Critical Thinking Quotes For People Who Want Laser Sharp Minds

Is there a best place to start?

I believe so.

It’s with humility. 

One: Start With What You Don’t Know

And Socrates was one of the first to nail down just how important humility is if you want to think well.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

This is probably one of the first and most important logical thinking quotes. 

It makes mathematical sense, for one thing.  

There’s so much to know, and only one life to live. 

By being intellectually honest that there will always be more to learn than any individual person could ever hope to know, you’ll be more open to collaborating with others.

And that’s exactly what Socrates did, leading to Plato’s Dialogues. It is one of the finest examples of collaborative thinking history has ever produced. 

Remember this quote and repeat it often. It will keep you open, curious and humble.

Two: An Imperfect Circle Only You Can Fix

Few people know the name Wilfred Bion now, but he was an important psychoanalyst in his time. In fact, he was even president of the British Psychoanalytical Society for some time.

When he noted that “thinking has to be called into existence to cope with thoughts,” Bion hit on something very important. It’s the core of what spiritual traditions have been struggling with for thousands of years: psychological suffering.

What Bion is essentially talking about is meta thinking or meta cognition. And as he warned his fellow psychoanalysts, how we think about thinking can either create more suffering or the release from suffering.

So as a quick exercise, ask yourself: Does how you think about your thinking increase or reduce your suffering? 

If you’re having problems, give this TEDx Talk and its simple suggestion a try:

By practicing an awareness of the difference between your thoughts and your thoughts about your thoughts, great peace and better thinking is possible.

As Bion says, you can call simple thoughts into existence to “neutralize” the thoughts that cause distress.

Three: The Reality Check

Marcus Aurelius does not strike me as a depressed person. 

But he certainly was a realistic person. And as a morning exercise, he reminded himself of all the good things in the world, without leaving out the bad.

Let’s look at the full quote in context:

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Why commit this quote to memory? 

The answer is simple:

To keep yourself balanced and to think critically as you go throughout your day. 

Inspired by Marcus Aurelius, I think of it this way:

The scales of justice are constantly thrown out of balance. Being ignorant of that fact helps no one. But cultivating discernment about this truth can help us better navigate the world. 

Four: Cherish And Seek Originality

A lot of people copied Nikola Tesla. 

But instead of getting mad, he said:

“I don’t care that they stole my idea …  I care that they don’t have any of their own.”

What makes this a great quote about critical thinking?

Tesla noticed the real behavior and the real problem. 

In a word, a lot of people suffer from scarcity-thinking. They don’t believe in themselves. And that leads them into behaviors that reduce their abilities to generate unique ideas.

Tesla, like Einstein, practiced something like image streaming . 

And not just for a few minutes. The practice went on over years. 

As Einstein said, ““It is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.”

As a result of sticking with visualization and working through problems longer than others were willing to do, powerful ideas emerged. These ideas went on to positively impact millions of people.

Tesla knew that if only more people would engage in deeper thinking, they would not have to steal the ideas of others.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with getting inspired by others. Check out these critical thinking examples if you need a starting point for coming up with ideas of your own.

Five: Don’t Settle Too Quickly

Joseph Joubert knew the dangers of deciding too quickly. As the inspector-general of universities for Napoleon, it was his job to ensure that intellectual conversations were flourishing. 

More importantly, he wanted to make sure that debates continued to happen, especially when certain parties wanted to shut them down.

That’s why he said:

“It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”

The next time you find yourself dodging an argument, stop and remember this quote. Debating is almost always worth it, even if you cannot always come to a consensus. 

A Few Resources That Help You Take Action From These Quotes on Critical Thinking

Going over famous critical thinking quotes is one thing.

Remembering them forever is another. 

If you’d like to commit these quotes to memory, I suggest you learn how to use a Memory Palace . It’s a fun and easy way to use a location (like your home or a classroom) to remember any information. 

Here’s where to learn all about the technique with some videos and worksheets:

For more on critical thinking, check out these resources:

• 11 Benefits of Critical Thinking That Rapidly Improve Your Life
• 9 Critical Thinking Strategies That Lifelong Learners Need To Know
• Reflective Thinking: 5 Powerful Thought Strategies For Improving Your Life
• The 7 Main Types Of Thinking (And How To Improve Them)
• Independent Thinking: 7 Tips On Becoming An Individual Thinker
• 3 Ways to Improve Your Reasoning Skills (With Examples)
• How to Think Logically (And Permanently Solve Serious Problems)
• Objective vs. Subjective Reasoning: Everything You Need to Know
• How to Think Faster And Avoid 9 Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making

I hope you enjoy going through them.

Why bother?

Well, as I often like to say (another quote for you): 

“Content may be king, but context is god.”

The more you know, the more you can know, especially when you read these critical thinking books .

One more before we go:

“I don’t write a book so that it will be the final word; I write a book so that other books are possible, not necessarily written by me.” ― Michel Foucault

Like Foucault, I write these blog posts so that posts from others become possible.

So let me know in the comments:

What are your favorite quotes about thinking? And why have they created an impact in your life?

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Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

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