Dinesh D'Souza Quotes

My characteristics as a scientist stem from a non-conformist upbringing, a sense of being something of an outsider, and looking for different perceptions in everything from novels, to art to experimental results. I like complexity and am delighted by the unexpected. Ideas interest me.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry 'I could have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

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.

The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavors to form new combinations, and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas.

Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.

The critical mind is the creative mind.

I like debate and argument, so I'm usually all right with disagreement, and I'm even all right if the critic doesn't come to a clear thumbs up or thumbs down. But I need the disagreement to have some kind of line I can follow on the map. I like following an interesting mind along it.

I don't think I've ever made a claim to startling originality.

Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought.

The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.

In this metallic age of barbarians, only a relentless cultivation of our ability to dream, to analyse and to captivate can prevent our personality from degenerating into nothing or else into a personality like all the rest.

I often try to think about, What sounds like a bad idea, but if you find the right plan of attack, it's actually a really good idea? I spend a lot of time really trying to systematically tackle problems from different angles.

We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.

Only mediocre ideas can be tested.

Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new.

The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis.

Test everything, including assumptions

Thinking is one of the most important weapons in dealing with problems

Dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.

Many people have the reasoning facility, but no one uses it in religious matters.

Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.

One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings

There is a wide difference between the original thinker and the merely learned man.

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