Quote by Hypatia of Alexandria: “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”

Intellectual independence — even when it leads to mistakes — is more valuable than intellectual submission. An error reached through your own reasoning can be corrected and learned from. A truth accepted on authority alone is fragile and leaves the mind no stronger. Hypatia is defending the right to reason.

Hypatia worked in Alexandria in the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE, a period of intense conflict between the declining Roman order, the rising Christian Church, and surviving pagan philosophical traditions. Her school attracted students across religious lines, making her a figure of dangerous independence.

Greek mathematician and philosopher of Alexandria who was the foremost mathematician and astronomer of her time. She taught Neoplatonist philosophy and wrote commentaries on advanced mathematics, and her murder by a Christian mob in 415 CE made her a symbol of the conflict between reason and religious authority.