Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [221-240] of 403 Reason quotesReason QuotesReason Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of success.~ Paul Kurtz Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom.~ Paul Kurtz I am determined my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.~ Charles Lamb Dogma is a defensive reaction against doubt in the mind of the theorist, but doubt of which he is unaware.~ Harold D. Lasswell The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.~ Max Lerner A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing A man may have to die for our country: but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.~ C. S. Lewis Hitherto the plans of the educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted, and indeed we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses.~ C. S. Lewis Collective judgment of new ideas is so often wrong that it is arguable that progress depends on individuals being free to back their own judgment despite collective disapproval.~ Sir William Arthur Lewis One's first step in wisdom is to question everything -- and one's last is to come to terms with everything.~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.~ John Lilly How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.~ Abraham Lincoln Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.~ Abraham Lincoln A radical is one who speaks the truth.~ Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.~ Walter Lippmann While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes the right important.~ Walter Lippmann While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes that right important.~ Walter Lippmann [F]or nothing is to be accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal; and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the high-way, when perhaps I have not twelve pence in my pocket: this man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver 100 pounds to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force, if I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any); and yet I might lawfully kill the one, and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The reason whereof is plain; because the one using force, which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it: and when it was gone, it was too late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead carcass: the loss was irreparable; which to prevent, the law of nature gave me a right to destroy him, who had put himself into a state of war with me, and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I may have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have reparation for my 100 pounds that way.~ John Locke New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.~ John Locke And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak Will risk t’ other half for the freedom to speak.~ James Russell Lowell Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print