“The first lesson Pythagoras's disciples learned was silence. For a time they were required to be only hearers. "He (Pythagoras) said so" (Ipse dixit) was to be held by them to be sufficient without proof. It was only advanced pupils, after years of patient submission, who were allowed to ask questions and to state objections."

— Thomas Bullfinch, The age of fable (1855). Do we paradoxically have less critical thought today because we are free to ask questions from day one?

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