Bell Hooks Quotes

I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society.

The proper method for hastening the decay of error, is not, by brute force, or by regulation which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to reduce men to intellectual uniformity; but on the contrary by teaching every man to think for himself.

There is only one justification for universities, as distinguished from trade schools. They must be centers of criticism.

Self-reliance leads to intellectual independence. Each man must think for himself, must train the mind to think, must habituate the soul to observe and analyze.

It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong.

People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language.

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.

If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

A thinking that approaches it objects openly, rigorously ... is also free toward its objects in the sense that it refuses to have rules prescribed to it by organized knowledge. It ... rends the veil with which society conceals them, and perceives them anew.

You don't have to think exactly like me. When people go, "I don't agree with everything you say," you know what, if you agree with everything anyone says, you're an idiot.

When you place a high value on truth, you have to think for yourself.

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself.

Meek young men grow up in colleges and believe it is their duty to accept the views which books have given, and grow up slaves.

A contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling.

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

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.

Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.

One of the most important things one can do in life is to brutally question every single thing you are taught.

This country is about, in my judgment, aggressive, open debate. There is an old saying: When everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking very much.

I'm raised to actually think, to use my brain.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.

No errors of opinion can possibly be dangerous in a country where opinion is left free to grapple with them.

If one knows only what one is told, one does not know enough to be able to arrive at a well-balanced decision.