Quotes About Critical

Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think

A mode of thought does not become 'critical' simply by attributing that label to itself, but by virtue of its content.

Apart from stemming consumption, the most intractable puzzle that Paul Ehrlich has encountered is why health decisions about Mother Nature—the mother that gives us life and breath—are made by politicians, not by scientists who know how critical her condition is. "It's the immoral equivalent of insurance company accountants making decisions about our personal health." Even

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.

The framing of a problem is often far more essential than its solution

It would be foolish to despise tradition. But with our growing self-consciousness and increasing intelligence we must begin to control tradition and assume a critical attitude toward it

If I were given one hour to save the world, I would spend 50 minutes defining the problem.

Autoritätsdusel ist der größte Feind der Wahrheit.

Autoritätsdusel ist der größte Feind der Wahrheit. / Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and interest in facts. Their critical habit of mind makes them resistant to the kind of propaganda that works so well on the majority. Among the masses "instinct is supreme, and from instinct comes faith...

Children, as might be expected, are highly susceptible to propaganda. They are ignorant of the world and its ways, and therefore completely unsuspecting. Their critical faculties are undeveloped. The youngest of them have not yet reached the age of reason and the older ones lack the experience on which their new-found rationality can effectively work.

In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.

At any given time, the input that is most important to a system is the one that is most limiting.

I've always been a very good judge of people. That's why I like so very few of them.

The running joke is that the lack of sex makes people more intense, winds them up, messes with their heads. But it's not a joke. It's a critical need, and in my view, something whose contribution to the human condition and mental health can't be minimized.

Because it lacks the rigors of critical thought, it naïvely embraces big technology; because it celebrates numbers it naïvely courts power; because it rejects nuance and knows next to nothing of the dialectical and dialogical character of truth, it naïvely courts the tyranny of religious ideology and cant.

Perhaps the most critical point—and the one hardest to keep clearly in mind—is that help is always defined by the recipient. Taking an action with respect to someone because "it is best for him," or because "it is for the good of the organization," may be influencing him, but it is not providing help unless he so perceives it. Headquarters

Among these treasures of our land is water--fast becoming our most valuable, most prized, most critical resource. A blessing where properly used--but it can bring devastation and ruin when left uncontrolled.

Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.

I look back on my 20s. It's supposed to be the prime of your life, the most vital, the most beautiful. But you're making your critical decisions and sometimes your most critical mistakes.

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive one.

I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It's not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking.

It is the small things in life which count; it is the inconsequential leak which empties the biggest reservoir.