Karl Ove Knausgard Quotes

The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west.

Theology is just what you really think about God, and if you're going to do that, you'd better use your mind and not just let it be a receptacle - a catch-all for whatever beliefs happen to be passing by.

If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not - in his mind - undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.

Power lies in the details, and the tenacious pursuit of such hidden levers can pay off enormously. While you don't want to get a reputation as a prissy worrywart, worrying about the details in private is important. You may think you are the world's greatest speaker, but if the auditorium's sound system is singing static - well, forget it.

By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forbidden, we Muslims supressed the freedom to think for ourselves and to act as we chose. We froze the moral outlook of billions of people into the mindset of the Arab desert in the seventh century. We were not just servants of Allah, we were slaves.

There is nothing more Islamic than critical thinking.

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.

There are lots of people who cannot think seriously without injuring their minds.

I love watching a movie that is smart, that makes me think, that includes me as an audience member, and I especially love it when I know that the people that I'm working with also do that.

Leonardo da Vinci did not take received wisdom - whether from ancient classical thinkers or medieval scholars or from the Bible - without questioning it. And this was the beginning of the scientific method. This is another lesson for our time: that when we have evidence that contradicts a certain belief, we should be willing to change it. I think this made Leonardo, in some ways, a person who better understood the beauty of God's creation than a person who just takes all received wisdom from the Bible on faith.

Communists must always go into the why's and wherefore's of anything, use their own heads and carefully think over whether or not it corresponds to reality and is really well founded; on no account should they follow blindly and encourage slavishness.

Any story that gets us thinking, and particularly young people, thinking why? Whether it's as a result of reading the book, or coming out of the theatre or the cinema, I think we should just simply be asking the question 'why'? Why did it happen to those people? Was it necessary? And anything that gets us thinking like that is really important.

No one attacks loose-thinking and folly with half the precision and zest of Thomas Szasz.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

There is a very important distinction between a critical attitude of mind (or critical faculty) and a sceptical attitude.

Merciless criticism and independent thinking are the two necessary traits of revolutionary thinking.

That's your responsibility as a person, as a human being - to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.

Strategic thinking rarely occurs spontaneously

The open mind never acts: when we have done our utmost to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, we still must close our minds for the moment with a snap, and act dogmatically on our conclusions.

I teach people to be flexible, scientific and logical in their thinking and therefore to be less prone to brainwashing by the therapist.

We don't read other people's opinions. We want to get the facts, and then think.

A contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling.