Freedom of thought

Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience or freedom of ideas) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints.

Quotes

• The freedom of thought is a sacred right of every individual man, and diversity will continue to increase with the progress, refinement, and differentiation of the human intellect.
  • Felix Adler, Founding address of New York Society for Ethical Culture (15 May 1876)

• The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
  • Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, Minorities Versus Majorities, 1910, Mother Earth Publishing

• The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control over the means of mental production, so that in consequence the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are, in general, subject to it.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology ca. April or early May 1846

• If it is the drive of our time, after freedom of thought is won, to pursue it to that perfection through which it changes to freedom of the will in order to realize the latter as the principle of a new era.
  • Max Stirner, Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung, oder: Humanismus und Realismus [The False Principle of Our Education: Or, Humanism and Realism] (1842) as translated by Ralph Myles (1967), p. 21

See also

• Agency theory
• Brain-washing
• Censorship
• Civil rights
• Liberty
• Discourse
• Free will
• Freedom of assembly
• Freedom of the press
• Freedom of religion
• Freedom of speech
• Freethought
• Human rights
• Mind control
• Opinion
  • Public opinion
• Political prisoner

External links

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