John B. Goodenough Quotes

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.

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

I hope that the message I conveyed in 'Julie of the Wolves' is to tell young people to think things out. Think independently.

I am sure it is one's duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one's own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this.

Don't assume that because everyone believes a thing, that it is right or wrong. Reason things out for yourself. Work to get answers on your own. Understand why you believe things.

I know that we shall meet problems along the way, but I'd far rather see for myself what's going on in the world outside, than rely on newspapers, television, politicians and religious leaders to tell me what I should be thinking.

He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn.

Listen and watch the world around you. Don't be satisfied with answers others give you.

If you're just a follower, you never know why you are doing something. Then you can't know if something is good or not. How would you know that what you thought is right, if you didn't think it?

Each of you, as an individual, must pick your own goals. Listen to others, but do not become a blind follower.

I learned to question everything you read. Don't take anything at face value. Don't care what other people say. I liked that philosophy.

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. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west.

All the great masters in the world have been saying only one thing down the centuries, "Have your own mind and have your own individuality. Don't be a part of the crowd; don't be a wheel in the whole mechanism of a vast society. Be individual, on your own. Live life with your own eyes; listen to music with your own ears." But we are not doing anything with our own ears, with our own eyes, with our own minds; everything is being taught, and we are following it.

As soon as you can say what you think and not what some other person has thought for you, you are on the way to being a remarkable man.

You may derive thoughts from others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are cast, must be your own.

The kids are not brought up to have minds of their own as individuals.

Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves - and be free.

Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.

I'm against fashionable thinking.

Think your own thoughts.

I want people to think through issues. I'm just tired of blind alignment.

A person of any mental quality has ideas of his own. This is common sense.

You want to come up with your own points of view first and then test them against what you see.

I'm not following anybody's tracks, I'm making my own baby.

The supreme lesson of any education should be to think for yourself and to be yourself; absent this attainment, education creates dangerous, stupefying conformity.