Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

I don't believe in holy writ. Buy fifty books or twenty-five books, take three weeks off, read them and make up your own theory. The fact that you end up literally burning twenty-two out of twenty-five books is beside the point.

Meek young men grow up in colleges and believe it is their duty to accept the views which books have given, and grow up slaves.

Honestly, I feel you are poisoned if you read too much of the scientific literature because it makes you start thinking like other people. You're better off having a vague sense of what's going on and making your own way.

… the third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.

I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left.

I don't believe anything unless I understand it inside out. And even if I understand something, it is not uncommon that I disagree with accepted view (even if it's a Nobel laureate).

I believe in choosing the hardest book imaginable. I believe in reading up on what others have to say about this difficult book, and then making up my own mind.

...I'm no longer prepared to accept what people say and what's written in books. I must think things out for myself, and try to find my own answer.

If I supply you with a thought, you may remember it and you may not. But if I can make you think a thought for yourself, I have indeed added to your stature.

It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed.

I've never been resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't sew, I could think.

The point of a philosophical spirit is to rely primarily upon one's own thinking.

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.

The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.

We've no use for intellectuals in this outfit. What we need is chimpanzees. Let me give you a word of advice: never say a word to us about being intelligent. We will think for you, my friend. Don't forget it.

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave.

Listen and watch the world around you. Don't be satisfied with answers others give you.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.

If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.

I have always found myself trying to study and analyze the world around me - not just taking everything for granted and following whatever is popular.

I wasn't overwhelmed by dogma, and that sort of freed me up to look at things differently.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.