David Frum Quotes

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.

Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be traveled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end.

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind.

I am basically analytical, not creative; my writing is simply a creative way of handling analysis.

My parents encouraged thought. You'll get through life better if you learn how to think.

It only takes a day to change someone from an anti-intellectual to an intellectual by persuading him that he might be one!

Logical reasoning is an argument which we have with ourselves and which reproduces internally the features of a real argument.

We've taught you that the earth is round, That red and white make pink, And something else that matters more - We've taught you how to think.

Mechanical rules are never a substitute for clarity of thought.

We owe it to our kids to inform them and train them how to think, not what to think.

I think with every book you realize you are partway through and there is something really elementary that you should have researched.

In our education system, we are taught to munch figures and remember them for lifetime. But does it help? We are not taught how to make decisions.

Looking back, I realize that nurturing curiosity and the instinct to seek solutions are perhaps the most important contributions education can make.

As an educator, I try to get people to be fundamentally curious and to question ideas that they might have or that are shared by others. In that state of mind, they have earned a kind of inoculation against the fuzzy thinking of these weird ideas floating around out there.

I'm a games and theory kind of guy. I love puzzles, so it was fun dissecting Shakespeare's prose.

Intellectuals are people who believe that ideas are of more importance than values. That is to say, their own ideas and other people's values.

I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.

I only surround myself with people who are intellectually stimulating.

Every problem can be solved as long as they use common sense and apply the right research and techniques.

The problems of puzzles are very near the problems of life.

The curiosity of the human mind is essential if you want citizens who think rather than accept the first nonsense they come to.

The center line of science literacy - which not many people tell you, but I feel this strongly, and I will go to my grave making this point - is how you think.

Writing's a great skill, but thinking's a better one.

You've never seen me debate anybody. On anything. Ever. 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. What the laws of physics say.