Natalie Clifford Barney Quotes

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave.

To be intellectual does not require one to be alienated and oppositional.

It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.

I have always found myself trying to study and analyze the world around me - not just taking everything for granted and following whatever is popular.

I just was raised always to question and be as informed as I can be.

Be a student, not a follower. Take interest in what someone says, then debate it, ponder it, and consider it from all angles.

I think there are different ways of being rigorous, and I am asking people to be as rigorous in their pleasure as in their criticism.

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

Think your own thoughts.

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

Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.

Empathy has some unfortunate features - it is parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate. We're often at our best when we're smart enough not to rely on it.

I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

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

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

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

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.

The curiosity of the human mind is essential if you want citizens who think rather than accept the first nonsense they come to.

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

Once you start looking at the world rationally, it becomes much more exciting.

I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.

It is my nature to thin where others read.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.