Amy Tan Quotes

If you're not thinking for yourself, then you're following-not leading.

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

Advice to intellectuals: let no-one represent you.

I don't substitute anybody else's judgment for my own.

In Ministry, we've only had one message: Think for yourself.

No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.

Do not crave to know the views of others, nor base your intent thereon. To think independently for yourself is a sign of fearlessness.

Determine to do some thinking for yourself. Don't live entirely upon the thoughts of others. Don't be an automaton.

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

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

I listen with attention to the judgment of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed none but my own..

Children have their own mind.

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.

First, recognize that you are not a sheep who will be satisfied with only a few nibbles of dry grass or with following the herd as they wander aimlessly, bleating and whining, all of their days. Separate yourself now from the multitude of humanity so that you will be able to control your own destiny. Remember that what others think and say and do need never influence what you think and say and do.

Best is the man who thinks for himself.

All I have to do is think and not be influenced by others.

In a world in which we are exposed to more information, more options, more philosophies, more perspectives than ever before, in which we must choose the values by which we will live (rather than unquestioningly follow some tradition for no better reason than that our own parents did), we need to be willing to stand on our own judgment and trust our own intelligence-to look at the world through our own eyes-to chart our course and think through how to achieve the future we want, to commit ourselves to continuous questioning and learning-to be, in a word, self-responsible.

You can not live your life just based on what everyone else thinks.

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.

I also believe that everyone needs to think independently and make their own decisions on what makes the most sense.

Learn to do your own thinking - don’t let other people do it for you!

Make sure what you do is a product of your own conclusion.

What? You're thinking for yourself? You're deciding on your own? You're applying your own yardsticks, your own judgments, your own values? Who do you think you are, anyway? And, indeed, that is precisely the question you are answering.

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