The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and...

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on...

Judging is preventing us from understanding a new truth. Free yourself from the rules of old judgments and create the space for new understanding.

As a convinced atheist, I ought to agree with Voltaire that Judaism is not just one more religion, but in its way the root of religious evil. Without the stern, joyless rabbis and their 613...

Some Christian lawyers—some eminent and stupid judges—have said and still say, that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law.Nothing could be more absurd. Long before these commandments were given there were codes of...

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

I am often described to my irritation as a ‘contrarian’ and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up...

Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind … when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal...

Words to intrigue, inspire, examine, question, praise; Words to help us appreciate our world, our selves, our games; Words to dance our true soul fires gracefully free.

A truly free man is not free ‘from’ anything, nor free ‘to’ anything, he is just free. Free within himself.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person’s notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with...

You don’t understand, you fool’ says Yegor, looking dreamily up at the sky. ‘You’ve never understood what kind of person I am, nor will you in a million years… You just think I’m a mad...

Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-

It is not insult from another that causes you pain. It is the part of your mind that agrees with the insult. Agree only with the truth about you, and you are free.

Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place.

Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.