Saul Bellow Quotes

The supreme lesson of any education should be to think for yourself and to be yourself; absent this attainment, education creates dangerous, stupefying conformity.

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

I hate the idea of always having to interpret other people's ideas and thoughts and words, because I'm very independent and, I guess, a free thinker.

I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.

I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.

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

Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.

Think for yourself and question authority.

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

I'm someone who does not like a bunker mentality and does not like groupthink.

Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society…

Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.

It is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.

Since I'm a contrarian, I don't want to go along with what everyone else thinks.

I think I always had, like, a rebellious spirit. But it wasn't a rebellious spirit to do wrong. It was a rebellious spirit to do something different.

I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.

I think it's very desirable to be an individual and a free thinker.

To be an individual is the hardest thing in the world, because nobody likes you to be an individual. Everybody wants to kill your individuality and to make a sheep out of you. Nobody wants you to be on your own.

If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.

When your opinions start to coincide with those of the majority, it is time to reconsider your opinions.

My whole life is a contradiction on purpose - to make you think. I think people have forgetten how to have their own opinions. They're always waiting for someone to tell them what to do and what to wear - it's so boring.

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.

Many things that come into the world are not looked into. The individual says 'My crowd doesn't run that way.' I say, don't run with crowds.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

I've always sort of wondered: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?