Dalai Lama Quotes

People only believe what they discover for themselves. We need to have civil discussions, and look at what the facts and the truth are.

Read – and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can't change it' - don't believe a word.

I was the youngest child. I got to be myself and ask stupid questions because I was the youngest. It is so important to listen to the questions children have and reward them for the wondrous questions they ask.

A curious mind is the most important attribute any man or woman can possess.

Listen and watch the world around you. Don't be satisfied with answers others give you.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

I was 7 years old, and I challenged everything. I never accepted answers on face value.

I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent that I just said, "This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, but it's not for me."

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.

This is the problem with the way you educate your children. You don't want your young ones drawing their own conclusions. You want them to come to the same conclusions that you came to. Thus you doom them to repeat the mistakes to which your own conclusions led you.

It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions.

The people that always impress me are the ones that are curious about what they're going to do next.

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It's more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself.

I don't ever want to be the type of person to tell you what to think or what to believe. Whatever stage in your life that you are in, I want you to organically reach whatever conclusions that you possibly reach.

Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people's thoughts.

Question authority; think for yourself. Talk to people, do things unrelated to school - to come up with your own framework for living. The world is too complex and people are too different to be overly prescriptive about the details.

I don't believe in holy writ. Buy fifty books or twenty-five books, take three weeks off, read them and make up your own theory. The fact that you end up literally burning twenty-two out of twenty-five books is beside the point.

You shouldn't be looking for the secret to making people follow fads, you should be looking for the secret to making them think for themselves. Because that's what science is all about.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won't come in. If you challenge your own, you won't be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others. You'll be a lot less likely to be caught up in bias or prejudice or be influenced by people who ask you to hand over your brains, your soul or your money because they have everything all figured out for you.

Hetero - normative behavior and herd mentality is dangerous. It's okay to be different. It's okay to stand out for whatever reason. Some people are just born that way and instead of trying to tear them down, learn something new. Be curious and open because maybe that's a pathway out for you, too.

We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet... I'm perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, 'I don't know yet, and we've got top people working on it.' The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you're doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question.

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

While we honour religion and believe it to be a powerful factor in elevating our race, we discriminate, as we hope our readers will also do, between it and dogmatism. Dogmatism has been the bane of civilization and a curse to mankind. It has degraded our sex, stifled intelligent inquiry, and persecuted every independent reformer and every noble cause.

A 'why' is a dangerous thing... It challenges old, comfortable ways, forces people to think about that they do instead of just mindlessly doing it. (Haplo) ... I think the danger is not so much in asking the 'why' as in believing you have come up with the only answer. (Alfred)

I am - since I was a child - curious about everything. I like to look at how things work and why people are the way they are.