Charlie Munger Quotes

I think, though, that we need to be armed with the critical thinking skills that lawyers and scientists and journalists such as yourself have. We all need to have those as we make our way through the day. And they're not that hard to acquire.

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.

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

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.

There's a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don't have to think, you just have to get more information - gets very dangerous.

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.

Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance. To me, it always seemed that the solution had to be wisdom. You did not refuse to look at danger, rather you learned how to handle it safely.

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.

I think people have common sense and can tell what's real, what's right or what's wrong and work it out.

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.

People who think well, write well

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

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.

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

The process of elimination, combined with a modicum of common sense, will always assist us to arrive at the correct conclusion with the maximum of possible accuracy and the minimum of hard labor. Which being translated means: I guessed it.

Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.

Some ways of using our thinking are really inspiring. There are people who use their thinking to race cars. People use their thinking to build rockets to the moon. It's all just a use of your thinking.

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

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Just because you've Googled something doesn't mean you've learned.

Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving ability.

Intellectuals are good at seeing the big picture. But they are not so good at process.

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

Solving wits and puzzles, in a way, helps to develop wit and ingenuity.