Greil Marcus Quotes

Rationality is not just something you do so that you can make more money, it is a binding principle. Rationality is a really good idea. You must avoid the nonsense that is conventional in one's own time. It requires developing systems of thought that improve your batting average over time.

Critical thinking does seem a superior sort of thinking because it seems as though the critic is actually going beyond the scope of what is being criticized in order to criticize it. That is only rarely a true assumption because, most often, the critic will seize on some little aspect that he or she understands and tackle only that.

I'm a bit of a freak for evidence-based analysis. I strongly believe in data.

Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.

Mostly, I try to take a rational approach to life.

Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion.

Science has not been successful by making up explanations of things that fit with the current social fabric.

I don't want people to say, 'Something is true because Tyson says it is true.' That's not critical thinking.

The times call for clear, lucid thinking rather than Clare Luceish thought.

Now, look, I - I like to look at evidence. I plead to that. I think evidence is important when you're making decisions that affect other people's lives.

Disregard belief systems that aren't based on empirical studies.

I have come to this conclusion: if 'sentimentality' is lazy emotion, then the term itself is lazy criticism.

Opinions don't affect facts. But facts should affect opinions, and do, if you're rational

My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another.

It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end.

We can't avoid reasoning; we can only avoid doing it well.

Research – and using what you learn from it to analyze every situation – is what separates being unreasonable from being irrational.

We need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead.

The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy.

Organized common (or uncommon) sense -- very basic knowledge -- is an enormously powerful tool. There are huge dangers with computers. People calculate too much and think too little.

There is a chalk outline slowly being drawn around common sense and most people can't identify the victim.

You must look at facts, because they look at you.

With method and logic one can accomplish anything.

Decisions should be based on facts, objectively considered what I call the fact-founded, thought-through approach to decision making.

We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions; we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.