“It was the essential freedom from dogma and the scientific outlook of Marxism that appealed to me.”

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)
Context: Russia apart, the theory and philosophy of Marxism lightened up many a dark corner of my mind. History came to have a new meaning for me. The Marxist interpretation threw a flood of light on it... It was the essential freedom from dogma and the scientific outlook of Marxism that appealed to me. p. 362-363

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It was the essential freedom from dogma and the scientific outlook of Marxism that appealed to me." by Jawaharlal Nehru?
Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Jawaharlal Nehru 110
Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister … 1889–1964

Related quotes

Leszek Kolakowski photo

“Philosophizing means, then, to ascend from public dogma to essentially private knowledge.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: Natural Right and History (1953), p. 12

Joseph Stalin photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

The Scientific Outlook (1931)
1930s
Context: The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition. The experimental habit of mind is a difficult one for most people to maintain; indeed, the science of one generation has already become the tradition of the next...

Mao Zedong photo

“People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well - they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kind of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Combat Liberalism (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 自由主义者以抽象的教条看待马克思主义的原则。他们赞成马克思主义,但是不准备实行之,或不准备完全实行之,不准备拿马克思主义代替自己的自由主义。这些人,马克思主义是有的,自由主义也是有的:说的是马克思主义,行的是自由主义;对人是马克思主义,对己是自由主义。两样货色齐备,各有各的用处。这是一部分人的思想方法。

“A fundamental value in the scientific outlook is concern with the best available map of reality.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Anatol Rapoport Science and the goals of man: a study in semantic orientation. Greenwood Press, 1950/1971. p. 224; Partly cited in: Book review http://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2040&context=lalrev by Harold G. Wren, in Louisiana Law Review, Vol 13, nr 4, May 1953
1950s
Context: A fundamental value in the scientific outlook is concern with the best available map of reality. The scientist will always seek a description of events which enables him to predict most by assuming least. He thus already prefers a particular form of behavior. If moralities are systems of preferences, here is at least one point at which science cannot be said to be completely without preferences. Science prefers good maps.

Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr photo

“Freedom from lower qualities is an essential qualification required for spiritual progress.”

Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr (967–1049) poet

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 95

Andrei Sakharov photo

“Intellectual freedom is essential to human society — freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968)
Context: Intellectual freedom is essential to human society — freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economy, and culture.
But freedom of thought is under a triple threat in modern society—from the deliberate opium of mass culture, from cowardly, egotistic, and philistine ideologies, and from the ossified dogmatism of a bureaucratic oligarchy and its favorite weapon, ideological censorship. Therefore, freedom of thought requires the defense of all thinking and honest people.

Related topics