Tom Lehrer: Quotes about thinking

Tom Lehrer is American singer-songwriter and mathematician. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.

Tom Lehrer: 120 quotes5 likes

“No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist.”

Tom Lehrer

Responding to a question on whether he considered himself an atheist or an agnostic, in an interview at celebathiests.com (June 1996) http://web.archive.org/web/20061027073138/http://www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Tom_Lehrer <br class="br">Context: No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.

“I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.”

Tom Lehrer

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Context: You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes … but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.

“The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines.”

Tom Lehrer

Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)

“"Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.”

Tom Lehrer

Introduction to "We Will All Go Together When We Go"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)

“I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?”

Tom Lehrer

Interview at celebathiests.com (June 1996)

“The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted.
The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.”

Tom Lehrer

Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)