Daniel Levitin Quotes

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

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

Organized common (or uncommon) sense -- very basic knowledge -- is an enormously powerful tool. There are huge dangers with computers. People calculate too much and think too little.

My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another.

Thinking - in particular abstract thinking, which most of us are introduced to through the study of mathematics and literature - helps us learn that we can become problem solvers.

I don't think I'm always right, but I would like to empower people to come to sound conclusions using a systematic way of looking at things.

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

I think you have to be left-brained, to a certain extent, to understand science. I can talk about it, but I can't do it.

Reason and the ability to use it are two separate skills.

Part of what we have to do a better job of, if our democracy is to function in a complicated diverse society like this, is to teach our kids enough critical thinking to be able to sort out what is true and what is false, what is contestable and what is incontestable. And we seem to have trouble with that. And our political system doesn't help.

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.

To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect.

The child has no way of knowing what's good information.

I always try to stay methodical and logical with everything I do, playing cricket and making decisions.

Critical thinking is the most important factor with chess. As it is in life, you need to think before you make decisions.

I like thinking and being able to answer questions that are tough to answer. You have to try to figure out how to get a good answer and look intelligent.

Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.

It's got to be the best intellectual exercise out there. You're seeing through new situations every ten minutes. In the stock market you don't base your decisions on what the market is doing, but on what you think is rational. Bridge is about weighing gain/loss ratios. You're doing calculations all the time.

Children should be taught to question everything . . . everything they read and everything they hear.

Good thinkers are always in demand. A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon generall, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born within us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else.

I have often heard that the outstanding man is he who thinks deeply about a problem, and the next is he who listens carefully to advice.

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

Schools train people to be ignorant, with style. They give you the equipment that you need to be a functional ignoramus. American schools* do not equip you to deal with things like logic; they don't give you the criteria by which to judge between good and bad in any medium or format; and they prepare you to be a usable victim for military-industrial complex that needs manpower.

Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check.