Intellectual Freedom

"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought." — Henry Graham Greene

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider God-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side." — Aristotle

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded faith." — Thomas Jefferson, probably a Freemason

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." — Thomas Jefferson

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you." — Harlan Ellison

"...[T]his is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate." — Kurt Vonnegut in Mother Night

"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." — Mark Twain, a Freemason

"The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings." — Siddhartha Gotoma, the Buddha

"Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent." — Robert A. Heinlein, possibly a Freemason, in Time Enough for Love

"I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it." — George Carlin

"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning." — Voltaire, a Freemason

"The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens have ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history." — Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love

"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." — Thomas Jefferson

"Tho' we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, —
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." — Alfred Lord Tennyson in Ulysses

"He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still." — Samuel Butler

"A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood." — Chinese proverb

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." — Galileo Galilei

"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within." — Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi

"You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?" — Kahlil Gibran

"Intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind and without it, the world is a prison, the Universe is a dungeon." — Robert G. Ingersoll

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." — Thomas Jefferson

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common." — John Locke

"Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently." — Rosa Luxemburg

"Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them." — Thomas Mann

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds." — Bob Marley

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man." — Bertrand Russell

"Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world." — Arthur Schopenhauer

"I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind." — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"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." — Leo Tolstoy

"Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind." — Virginia Woolf