Aiden Wilson Tozer Quotes

It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.

I hope that I am generous and tolerant, but certainly on the intellectual side I think that there are discoverable truths, and some things that are closer approximations to the truth than others.

One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.

I am not 'in pursuit of truth.' It is not my 'quarry.' I am of my human nature a thinker, and conscious of need, responsibility of thinking-speaking with truth. I do not go about hunting 'truths.'

Within the confines of the lecture hall, no other virtue exists but plain intellectual integrity.

The duty of a philosopher is clear. He must take every pain to ascertain the truth; and, having arrived at a conclusion, he should noise it abroad far and wide, utterly regardless of what opinions he shocks.

A just thinker will allow full swing to his scepticism. I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.... We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.

To think truly is noble and to be deceived is base.

The cold passion for truth hunts in no pack.

My work is to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth.

All I would ask you to be thinking of is the truth and not Socrates.

A man ceases to be an honest doubter the moment he refuses one way of getting at the truth because he does not like that way.

Unscientific man is beset by a deplorable desire to have been right. The scientist is distinguished by a desire to be right.

Every politician, every member of the clerical profession, ought to incur the reasonable suspicion of being an interested supporter of false doctrines, who becomes angry at opposition, and endeavors to cast an odium on free inquiry. Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.

If you will take my advice you will think little of Socrates, and a great deal more of truth.

A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.

Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.

Being rational is a moral Imperative. You should never be stupider than you need to be.

Theory now: concern for truth must not hobble our discussion.

Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand truth, and in his left hand search after truth, deign to proffer me the one I might prefer, in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request search after truth.

When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.

Do not be influenced by the importance of the writer, and whether his learning be great or small, but let the love of pure truth draw you to read. Do not inquire, Who said this? but pay attention to what is said.

The effective thinker treats arrogance as the major sin of thinking.

Moral cowardice and intellectual corruption are the natural concomitants of unchallenged privilege.