{"id":4643,"date":"2025-10-03T13:34:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T10:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/?p=4643"},"modified":"2025-10-11T16:11:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T13:11:25","slug":"think-against-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/think-against-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Think Against Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sharpen the mind by meeting the contrary, revising, and growing through tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Against Thoughtlessness<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<strong>Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought\u2026<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Hannah Arendt<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>The essence of evil is the refusal to think.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 (Paraphrase commonly attributed to Arendt)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Ayn Rand, <em>Atlas Shrugged<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, <em>Letters and Papers from Prison<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>To see what is in front of one\u2019s nose needs a constant struggle.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 George Orwell<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Courage\/Duty to Think<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<strong>There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Hannah Arendt, <em>The Life of the Mind<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Immanuel Kant, \u201cWhat Is Enlightenment?\u201d (1784)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>The unexamined life is not worth living.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Socrates, <em>Apology<\/em> 38a<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Opposition as Teacher<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<strong>He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 John Stuart Mill, <em>On Liberty<\/em> (1859)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>If all mankind minus one were of one opinion\u2026 to silence that one person is to rob the human race.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 John Stuart Mill, <em>On Liberty<\/em> (1859)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Karl Popper (often quoted)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 M. K. Gandhi (attributed)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Rosa Luxemburg, <em>The Russian Revolution<\/em> (1918)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contradiction &amp; Dialectic<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<strong>It is only by tarrying with the negative that Spirit wins its truth.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 G. W. F. Hegel, <em>Phenomenology of Spirit<\/em> (1807)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Without contraries is no progression.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 William Blake, <em>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell<\/em> (1790\u201393)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are not.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Heraclitus, DK B49a<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Niels Bohr (attributed)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself\u2026 I contain multitudes.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Walt Whitman, \u201cSong of Myself\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas\u2026 and still retain the ability to function.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 F. Scott Fitzgerald, \u201cThe Crack-Up\u201d (1936)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">From Doubt to Understanding <\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<strong>Read not to contradict and confute\u2026 but to weigh and consider.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Francis Bacon, \u201cOf Studies\u201d (1625)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but\u2026 begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Francis Bacon, <em>The Advancement of Learning<\/em> (1605)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 C. S. Peirce, \u201cThe Fixation of Belief\u201d (1877)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Be patient toward all that is unsolved\u2026 live the questions now.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Rainer Maria Rilke, <em>Letters to a Young Poet<\/em> (1903)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>The first principle is that you must not fool yourself\u2014and you are the easiest person to fool.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Richard Feynman, 1974 Caltech address<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Corrigibility &amp; Change<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201c<strong>When the facts change, I change my mind\u2014what do you do, sir?<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 attributed to J. M. Keynes<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change\u2026<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Marcus Aurelius, <em>Meditations<\/em> 6.21<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Epictetus, <em>Discourses<\/em> II.17<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Real knowledge is to know the extent of one\u2019s ignorance.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 Confucius, <em>Analects<\/em> 2.17<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 George Bernard Shaw<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201c<strong>Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 James Baldwin (1962)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">See Also:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/eye-opening-quotes-about-conflicts\/\">Quotes about Conflicts<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/quotes\/tag\/thinking\">Good Reads on Thinking<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/quotes\/2622245.Lao_Tzu\">Good Reads Lao Tzu<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sharpen the mind by meeting the contrary, revising, and growing through tension. Against Thoughtlessness The Courage\/Duty to Think Opposition as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4643"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4780,"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643\/revisions\/4780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialexity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}