Critical Thinking Quotes

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Confucius
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“The aim of good teaching is to make students independent, autonomous and responsible.”
– Caleb Gattegno
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“If we are to coax students out of the shelter of received opinion, we must consider what made them seek
such protection in the first place.” – James Wilkerson and Heather Dubrow
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“I don’t know if that’s the answer you want, but … .” – Anonymous student

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“Specific knowledge will not be as important to tomorrow’s people as the ability to learn and make sense of
new information.” – D. Gough
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“Teaching can be compared to selling commodities. No one can sell unless someone buys ... [yet] there are
teachers who think they have done a good days teaching irrespective of what pupils have learned.”
– John Dewey
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“Students must realize that the goal of their education is critical thinking – that the responsibility for thinking
is theirs, that it is desirable to have more than one solution, … and that it is desirable to change an answer
with additional information.” – Arthur L. Costa
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“Mindless memorization: Like fattening a goose before slaughter, force feeding students endless content in
the form of declarative sentences and then asking them to remember the content is mindless teaching at its
best, and mental torture at its worst.” – www.turtletrader.com/critical-thinking.html
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“A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectation.”
– Chinese Proverb
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“As a general rule, teachers teach more by what they are than by what they say.” – Anonymous
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There's no such thing as a stupid question. But there are an awful lot of inquisitive idiots... .”
– Anonymous
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“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats

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“Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good.”
– Nietzsche
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“Critical thinking is the art of taking charge of your own mind. Its value is simple: if we can take charge of our
own minds, we can take charge of our lives.” – The Critical Thinking Community
Learning Link Handout
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Handout from Dr. Dona Vassall-Fall's "Critical Thinking Seminar" - Sohar University and U. of Nizwa, Sultanate of Oman.
February 23-24, 2009.