Quotes About Open-mindedness

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.

Read the great stuff but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.

Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.

refuse to accept assertions blindly. Challenge everything and everyone—including your teachers. Don't be intimidated. You are the best authority on what you don't understand—trust yourself: don't be afraid to ask the questions you need to ask, and be brave enough to change your thinking when you uncover a blind spot.

One of the challenges of life is to be open-minded about new ideas and new possibilities.

Whenever you "see" an issue or "understand" a concept, be conscious of the lens through which you're viewing the subject. You should assume you're introducing bias. The challenge remains to identify and let go of that bias or the assumptions you bring, and actively work to see and understand the subject anew.

It is axiomatic that men who know little are often intolerant of a point of view that is contrary to their own. The bitterness that has been brought about by arguments on public questions is proverbial. Lovers have been parted by bitter quarrels on theories of pacificism or militarism; and when an argument upon an abstract question engages opponents they often desert the main line of arguments in order to abuse each other.

In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible and plural at a lower cost. If you cannot accurately predict the future then you must flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.

If you never change your mind, why have one?

Everyone has the right to doubt everything as often as he pleases and the duty to do it at least once. No way of looking at things is too sacred to be reconsidered. No way of doing things is beyond improvement.

To cultivate a pleasure in being wrong sounds perverse, yet losing an argument means escaping from an old idea and the acquisition of a new way of looking at things.

One of the least admirable things about people," said the small gentleman, "is the way they are afraid of whatever they don't understand.

We are each burdened with prejudice; against the poor or the rich, the smart or the slow, the gaunt or the obese. It is natural to develop prejudices. It is noble to rise above them.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions.

If only closed minds came with closed mouths.

Minds are like parachutes — they only function when open.

A closed mind is a good thing to lose.

Civilization is a slow process of adopting the ideas of minorities.

Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side.

Your first judgement of a person should never be your last.

Cave ab homine unius libri [Beware the man of one book].

Every experience is a form of exploration.

ten centuries ago people would have snorted just like that at the idea of a black as Head on this planet. Such narrow stupidity seems fantastic to us now. Our own prejudices will seem just as comical to our great-great-grandchildren.