Voltaire Quotes

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

When everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking clearly.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

Many have original minds who do not think it - they are led away by custom!

He who hangs on the errors of the ignorant multitude, must not be counted among great men.

Just as no great painting has ever been created by a committee, no great vision has ever emerged from the herd.

He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

Human beings never think for themselves. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.

You look like a human being, but you don't have a mind of your own.

It is undoubtedly easier to believe in absolutes, follow blindly, mouth received wisdom. But that is self-betrayal.

Don’t just follow the trend. You may have heard me say that it’s good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles. Which is, rather than reasoning by analogy, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine and you reason up from there.

Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

Imitation is for shirkers, like-minded-ness for the comfort lovers, unifying for the creators.

We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what "he" thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally - that is, for himself - which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts.

Because other people are fools, must you be so too?

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.

When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.

You may derive thoughts from others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are cast, must be your own.

The nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them.

If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.

I guess I have a gift for expressing pedestrian tastes. In a way, it's kind of depressing.

Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them.

How could I be anything but a dissenter? Who wants the opinion of a group?

Following the herd is fine, until they all run off the side of a cliff together.