“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
—Albert Einstein
“There are two things over which you have complete dominion, authority and control—your mind and your mouth.”
—African Proverb
“Think for yourself and question authority.”
—Timothy Leary
“The current state of the news media is partially to blame for the public’s general lack of information vital for responsible citizenship in a democracy. The news media has become an aspect of show business, offering merely infotainment. It has evolved into an entity that tends to function as a public relations agency for wealthy and powerful multinational corporations, members of Congress, and the current Presidential Administration, including the administrations that preceded it. The news media is being utilized as a political tool of suppression and propaganda by those in power, and propaganda is psychological in nature. Full of half-truths and utter misinformation, it’s an arrogant and very commercial strategy that is implemented because it appeals to emotions—fear being the main one—relentless talk of national security, personal and community safety, meant to trigger childhood insecurities and indoctrinated views of authority.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable…”
—H.L. Mencken
“A slave is not he who works without wages, it is he tries to stop working and discovers he is not allowed.”
—Anonymous
“I divide men into two lots. They are freethinkers, or they are not freethinkers. Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless. A man may be a Catholic, a Frenchman, or a capitalist, and yet be a freethinker; but if he puts his Catholicism, his patriotism, or his interest above his reason, and will not give the latter free play where those subjects are touched, he is not a freethinker. His mind is in bondage.”
—Leo Tolstoy
Mind / Purpose / Truth 