You have to know the past to understand the present.
The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.
If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.
Self-education is a continuing source of pleasure to me, for the more I know, the fuller my life is and the better I appreciate my own existence.
We can’t teach what we don’t know, and we can’t lead where we can’t go.
Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.
No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.
Research is creating new knowledge.
For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.
Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything.
If you’re scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you, and that understanding empowers you.
Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.
As areas of knowledge grow, so too do the perimeters of ignorance.
People like it when they understand something that they previously thought they couldn’t understand. It’s a sense of empowerment.
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.
Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.