"Free thought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boys ran from the Cerameician field of death to the home of the goddess of Wisdom, not merely he who first reached the goal but he also who first started with the torch aflame received a prize. In the Lampadephoria of civilisation and free thought let us not forget to render due meed of honour to those who first lit that sacred flame, the increasing splendour of which lights our footsteps to the far-off divine event of the attainment of perfect truth.—The ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... the views which he shared with Mill. The utilitarian point of view tends to lower the true ground of toleration, because it regards exclusively the coercive elements of law. I should hold that free thought is not merely a right, but a duty, the exercise of which should be therefore encouraged as well as permitted; and that the inability of the coarse methods of coercion to stamp out particular beliefs without crushing thought in general, is an essential part of the argument, not a mere accident ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the midst of a gigantic movement greater than that which preceded and produced the Reformation, and really only the continuation of that movement. But there is nothing new in the ideas which lie at the bottom of the movement, nor is any reconcilement possible between free thought and traditional authority. One or other will have to succumb after a struggle of unknown duration, which will have as side issues vast political and social troubles. I have no more doubt that free thought will win in the long run ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley |
