Seanan McGuire Quotes

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

[W]hen a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds.

Why are the people rebellious? Because the rulers interfere too much. Therefore they are rebellious.

A 'why' is a dangerous thing... It challenges old, comfortable ways, forces people to think about that they do instead of just mindlessly doing it. (Haplo) ... I think the danger is not so much in asking the 'why' as in believing you have come up with the only answer. (Alfred)

To accept opinions is to gain the good solid feeling of being correct without having to think.

Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?

The man who accepts opinions because they have been entertained by distinguished people, is a mental snob.

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

There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face.

O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone.

Some people read only because they are too lazy to think.

The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen states in the course of eleven years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections.

Being a wiseass in a groupthink environment is like throwing an egg at a bulldozer.

I think people are looking for an alternative because in addition to there being sort of a myopic, lemming - like ants on a sugar cube mentality on this DNS attack story by many in the media, there's just this culture of sameness. Everybody sounds the same.

Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.

most Americans are in deep awe of things-as-they-are. Even with everything this obviously out of control, they still tell themselves that those in authority must know what they are doing, and must be describing our condition to us as it really is; they still take it for granted that somehow what is, what is done, must make sense, can't really be insane. These assumptions exercise a tyranny over their minds.

If people wake up, think critically, and get angry, we get connected to that courage that the founding generation meant us to have. History shows when millions just don't go along, resist at any level - and I'm talking about all the way up to bipartisan impeachment and arrest of the leaders of the coup - then it can't happen.

You know what happened the last time a group of people said, 'Screw it, we don't care what you think'? They got hung as witches.

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.

When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. They can't get away with their abuse. They can't get away with subjection. They can't get away with subjugation. They can't get away with exploitation. They can't get away with domination. It takes courage for folk to stand up.

Let our tribute to the dead be a new resolve: to respect people for what they individually think, rather than respect groups for what they were collectively brought up to believe.

Somebody puts up some weird thing and somebody else thinks yeah maybe that's the way things work and pretty soon you have some cult going. Its not the fault of the internet, it's the fault of a social and culture system that doesn't educate people properly and in fact on purpose. They don't want to educate people properly.

My whole life is a contradiction on purpose - to make you think. I think people have forgetten how to have their own opinions. They're always waiting for someone to tell them what to do and what to wear - it's so boring.

Revolt is the violence of an entire people; rebellion the unruliness of an individual or an uprising by a minority; both are spontaneous and blind. Revolution is both planned and spontaneous, a science and an art.