Critical Self-reflection Quotes

I have made a few mistakes early on that I admit myself, and there have been times when I have gone over the top and done things that you shouldn't do in international cricket, but that's how you learn.

If you asked me what is the basis of all my work, it's the feeling there's something basically wrong with human beings.

I love what I think, and I'm never tempted to believe it.

A conscious nation is the one that reconsiders itself, from time to time, without waiting for others to dictate for it.

How do I know that I know this, except that I've always been taught this and never heard anything else? [...] How sure am I of my own views? Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you're bound to be okay, because you're in the safely moral majority.

The Americans, they always depend on a method what I call ... stupid, silly. All I ask is check yourself. Do not in fact repeat their lies.

And so it's inescapable and people who proclaim scrupulous honesty can only proclaim that if they don't examine closely the things they believe.

In my religion it's actually better to know you're doing wrong and try to improve that wrong than to think philosophically that what you're doing is right and in fact it is wrong.

I just want people to hold themselves to account about what they think more, because I strongly believe that the way to live a moral life is to not allow yourself to have beliefs which are easy but which don't make sense.

A skeptic as to all ideas, including especially my own, I have never suffered a pang when the ideas of some other imbecile prevailed.

As long as one does not call his own position into question but regards it as absolute, while interpreting his opponents' ideas as a mere function of the social positions they occupy, the decisive step forward has not yet been taken.

The church can challenge society, but society also challenges the church. That's good. We should be humble enough to be able to accept that.

I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you've got to be asking questions all the time, you've also got to make sure that you're doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers - and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it's not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you're only skeptical outwards you've got an unbalanced skepticism.

The beam in our own eye is harder to detect, although - or more accurately because - to detect it, and remove it, is vastly more important on elementary moral grounds, and commonly more important in terms of direct human consequences as well. Intellectuals have historically played a critical function in performing these tasks, and [Ivan] Illich is right to observe that claims to scientific expertise and special knowledge are often used as a device.

I think it's important to always stay critical. But rather than dwelling on it and wishing I could change something, it's important to just take those lessons learned and those new notes and apply them to the next thing.

I, who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sallies of my mind which I mistrust.

It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.

You've got to be harsh on yourself because it is the only way you are going to get better by studying those situations where you may have fallen short.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.