Winifred Holtby Quotes

I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you've got to be asking questions all the time, you've also got to make sure that you're doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers - and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it's not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you're only skeptical outwards you've got an unbalanced skepticism.

Explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatize or accept another's dogmatism.

To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry.

The philosophical spirit is not satisfied to simply accept what it is told, no matter how much prestige the teller seems to have. This is true even if the teller is a god.

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

It is important that students bring a certain …, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.

Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.

I believe that people should be able to question things.

I was 7 years old, and I challenged everything. I never accepted answers on face value.

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.

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).

Americans who read and think are patriots of the first order. The kind who know enough to roll their eyes whenever anyone tries to claim sole custody of the flag and weild it as a blunt instrument. There are as many ways to love America as there are Americans, and our country needs us all.

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.

Children should be taught to question everything . . . everything they read and everything they hear.

Basically, the Buddhist attitude is that you should not accept certain things through sheer faith. And for that you need a skeptical attitude. Buddha himself made this clear to his followers. He said you should not accept those things I taught out of respect for me, but rather through investigation by yourself.

Inquiry is human; blind obedience brutal. Truth never loses by the one but often suffers by the other.

The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be rooted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle. The very corner-stone of an education intended to form great minds, must be the recognition of the principle, that the object is to call forth the greatest possible quantity of intellectual power, and to inspire the intensest love of truth.

if you don't have doubts you're either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants-in-the-pants of faith. They keep it alive and moving.

The most subversive people are those who ask questions.

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized.

Doubt is the first step towards knowledge, not faith.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

Think your own thoughts.