“And the brain thinks in spite of you. Should you express that thought? Certainly you should, if others express theirs. You have exactly the same right. He who takes it from you is a robber.”

—  Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "And the brain thinks in spite of you. Should you express that thought? Certainly you should, if others express theirs. …" by Robert G. Ingersoll?
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Robert G. Ingersoll 439
Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

Related quotes

Shunryu Suzuki photo

“It is a big mistake to think that the best way to express yourself is to do whatever you want, acting as you please. This is not expressing yourself. If you know what to do exactly, and you do it, then you can express yourself fully.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Express Yourself Fully (page 8)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“If you have the right to work with your hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain? Have you not the right to read, to observe, to investigate — and when you have so read and so investigated, have you not the right to reap that field? And what is it to reap that field? It is simply to express what you have ascertained — simply to give your thoughts to your fellow-men.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

James Patterson photo

“It was the building from the drawing in my brain.
And if you don’t think that’s a weird sentence, maybe you should reread it.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

“Erika Jayne is six words: fantasy, love, escape, glitz, glamour, and fun. I think women should live out loud. I think that we should be fearless. I think we should express ourselves. I think we should have fun. And I don’t think anyone should dictate to you when your best days are, or that you are too old to express yourself. You are of worth and value in your 40s, 50s, and 60s. You don’t have to stop doing what you love simply because you’re not 25. I just think that those are old ideas that need to be broken and discarded quite honestly.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Erika Jayne interview to Refinery29 https://www.refinery29.com/erika-jayne-girardi-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills-interview (2017)

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts?”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Heretics and Heresies (1874)
Context: Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts?
Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? Is it possible that a god delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and renown a god must win on such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly.

“When you think that you are beautiful, you are liable to think that you are more beautiful than others, and such a thought is not a beautiful thought. To recognize or criticise ugliness and inferiority in others is to create the inferior and the ugly in yourself, and what you create in yourself will sooner or later be expressed through your mind and personality.”

Christian D. Larson (1874–1962) Prolific author of metaphysical and New Thought books

Source: Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapter 7, p. 115–116

Fyodor Tyutchev photo

“How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.”

Fyodor Tyutchev (1803–1873) Russian poet

Silentium!

“That you should disagree with me I can understand, but that you should resent my expressing my opinions is something that frankly amazes me.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

Letter to George Devine (10 March 1964), printed in Kenneth Tynan : A Life by Dominic Shellard<!-- Yale University Press, 2003, --> , p. 292
Context: I believe in neither a director’s nor a writer’s theatre, but a theatre of intelligent audiences. I count myself as a member of an intelligent audience, and I wrote to you as such. That you should disagree with me I can understand, but that you should resent my expressing my opinions is something that frankly amazes me. I thought we had outgrown the idea of theatre as a mystic rite born of secret communion between author, director, actors and an empty auditorium.

“If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Eric Schmidt photo

“When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do. Well, that’s a bug. We have more bugs per second in the world. We should be able to give you the right answer just once. We should know what you meant. You should look for information. We should get it exactly right and we should give it to you in your language and we should never be wrong. That’s our challenge.”

Eric Schmidt (1955) software engineer, businessman

Charlie Rose interview, 3 Jun 2005 https://charlierose.com/videos/17574, quoted in An Old Eric Schmidt Interview Reveals Google’s End-Game For Search And Competition https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/04/an-old-eric-schmidt-interview-reveals-googles-end-game-for-search-and-competition/ by TechCrunch (4 Jan 2013).

Related topics