Bennett Miller Quotes

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

It's really important, whether you're a conservative or a liberal, to always challenge the conventional wisdom, which is what I've tried to do in all my work.

I think the reason why 'Red Eye' is popular is because we question the common assumptions that you find elsewhere.

I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions... Don't take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can't. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself.

I try and take everyone's ideals, common morals, flip them around, make people look at them differently, question them, so that you're not always taking things for granted.

Never assume the obvious is true.

Skepticism is an important historical tool. It is the starting point of all revision of hitherto accepted history.

I refused to accept anything, doubted everything. So, doubting everything, I had to find something that had not existed before, something I had not thought of before. Any idea that came to me, the thing would be to turn it around and try to see it with another set of senses.

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.

I'm about challenging people. Like, properly challenging them and their assumptions.

In every respect the burden is hard on those who attack an almost universal opinion. They must be very fortunate well as unusually capable if they obtain a hearing at all.

I don't think we ought to base our policy on what the conventional wisdom is.... The conventional wisdom usually is wrong.

Question everything!

It is only by questioning what people take for granted, what people hold to be true, that we can break through the hypnosis of social conditioning.

The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.

Never take anything at face value. Dare to question and seek the truth.

You should never assume anything coming from a critical standpoint. You should go into everything assuming you're going to get crushed.

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

Look at all the sentences which seem true and question them.

Science and medicine and technology have all produced the breathtaking advances with which they have gifted the human race, only because they have been willing to do what religion has consistently, staunchly, and stubbornly refused to do: question the prior assumption.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

An educated mind is practiced in the uses of reason, which inevitably leads to a skeptical outlook.

Learn to be as analytical about things of which you are credulous as you are of those which you criticise.

People confuse the word cynicism with the word skepticism. One is “you’re not gonna pay attention to anything, think everything’s screwed up, nothing’s ever gonna work out right”, that’s cynicism. But skepticism is, “you’re presented with evidence and you do your best to draw conclusions based on that”. So, as the saying goes, Bill Nye, do you believe in ghosts? No. However, I would love to see one. Bring it on. I’m open minded to the idea, but the more I look into it in a skeptical frame of thinking, the less likely it seems.

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect...