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1 " A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one's vocabulary and the greater one's awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing. "
― Henry Hazlitt , Thinking as a Science
2 " The only way we could remember would be by constant re-reading, for knowledge unused tends to drop out of mind. Knowledge used does not need to be remembered; practice forms habits and habits make memory unnecessary. The rule is nothing; the application is everything. "
3 " It is almost possible to sum up the whole process of thinking as the occurrence of suggestions for the solution of difficulties and the testing out of those suggestions. The suggestions or suppositions are tested by observation,memory, experiment. "
4 " To think at all requires a purpose, no matter how vague. The best thinking, however, requires a definite purpose, and the more definite this purpose the more definite will be our thinking. Therefore in taking up any special line of thought, we must first find just what our end or purpose is, and thus get clearly in mind what our problems are. "
5 " El divagador encara un problema, pierde interés y lo abandona. El hombre capaz de concentrarse persevera hasta que lo resuelve. "
6 " La generación actual tiene el priviliegio, que no tuvo ninguna otra, de contar con ese ingente acervo intelectual. "
7 " La generación actual tiene el privilegio, que no tuvo ninguna otra, de contar con ese ingente acervo intelectual. "
8 " Eternal vigilance is the price of an open mind. "
9 " It has been frequently said that many of the world’s greatest inventions were due to accident. In a sense this is true. But the accident was prepared for by previous hard thinking. It would never have occurred had not this thinking taken place. "
10 " What men do not know about they take for granted. Knowledge furnishes problems, and the discovery of problems itself constitutes an intellectual advance. "
11 " The quickest way to detect error in analogy is to carry it out as far as it will go—and further. Every analogy will break down somewhere. Any analogy if carried out far enough becomes absurd. "
12 " Another way to find whether an analogy is fallacious is to see whether you can discover a counter analogy. Surely this is the most effective practice in refuting analogy in argument. "
13 " It is best to avoid analogy except for purposes of suggestion, or as a rhetorical device for explaining an idea already arrived at by other means. "
14 " Theory is the best guide for experiment—that were it not for theory and the problems and hypotheses that come out of it, we would not know the points we wanted to verify, and hence would experiment aimlessly "
15 " The only way we can get rid of this desire to cling to our prejudices, is thoroughly to convince ourselves of the superiority of the truth; to leave not the slightest doubt in our own minds as to the value of looking with perfect indifference on all questions; to see that this is more advantageous than believing in that opinion which would benefit us most if true, more important than “being consistent,” more to be cherished than the comfortable feeling of certainty. "
16 " But as almost all objects differ in some qualities and almost all have some qualities in common, it follows that, contrary to common belief, there is no one classification absolutely essential to any group of objects.An infinite number of classifications may be made, because every object has an infinite number of attributes, depending on the aspect we take of it. Nor is any one aspect of a thing "truer" than any other. The aspect we take depends entirely on the purpose we have in mind or the problem we wish to solve. "
17 " In all experiments one must exercise ingenuity in finding other causes besides the one to be studied which may possibly influence a result, and in eliminating these. "
18 " There are methods numberless, and some problems will require methods all their own.But what is important is that every problem should be dealt with by as many methods as possible. Doubtless you have used, at some time or other in the course of your thinking, nearly every one of the methods I have so far suggested. But the point is not that you have never used these methods at all,but that you have not used them often enough. You were unaware what method you were using. Consequently you used it only occasionally. You used it only when you stumbled on it accidentally. To formulate methods is to bring them to your attention, so that you may use them always, thoroughly, correctly, consistently. "
19 " If you follow this method with all problems—i.e., thinking a thing out for yourself before looking up what others have thought—you will soon improve your thinking surprisingly. "
20 " No problem worthy of the name is an indivisible unit, and may always be broken into smaller problems. The whole science of aesthetics is included in the simple question "What is beauty?", the science of ethics is merely the answer to "What is right conduct? "
