Quotes About Open-mindedness

Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.

To understand everything is to hate nothing.

Tolerance does not grow with banning what is thought to be unpalatable; it grows with arguing and talking about it; for that which is unpalatable gets discarded.

How wonderful it would be to live an entire life with such freedom to try new things, experience the unknown, and face our fears. It is hard for many adults to step out there and take those chances, but kids are more willing to release their inhibitions and truly live life. If we can teach them to embrace that feeling when they are young, hopefully it will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Art teaches something we all need to learn, especially about people who are different from ourselves: "To see things the way they truly are, sometimes you have to look more deeply.

I believe in the Church of Baseball. I tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I learned that, I gave Jesus a chance.

It's taken folk a while to come around, hasn't it? Even the boys in the band weren't too sure about the whole art thing. They just wanted me to concentrate on the music. But they respect it now.

If you are capable of hearing, listen.

I was thinking about how people prejudge other people. That's the same as prejudice, right?

Freedom is always freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Freiheit, ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden

Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

If you don't believe things, you'll never have any fun. The more things you can believe the more interesting life is, as you say yourself. Too much incredulity makes it a poor thing.

Most of us operate from a narrower frame of reference than that of which we are capable, failing to transcend the influence of our particular culture, our particular set of parents and our particular childhood experience upon our understanding.

Mankind do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.

I take the Bible too seriously to take it all literally.

When I have something to say that I think will be too difficult for adults, I write it in a book for children. Children are excited by new ideas; they have not yet closed the doors and windows of their imaginations. Provided the story is good... nothing is too difficult for children.

One of the hardest lessons I have to learn is how not to be judgmental about people who are judgmental. When I see how wrong somebody is—how shallow it is to look at the Resurrection as a mere, explainable fact—when I see only the mistakenness of others, then I am blinded to their being children of God, who are just as valued and treasured as are those who more nearly agree with me.

If the book will be too difficult for grownups, then you write it for children.

We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means that we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues and thanked God that he was not like other men.

How do we teach a child--our own, or those in a classroom--to have compassion: to allow people to be different; to understand that like is not equal; to experiment; to laugh; to love; to accept the fact that the most important questions a human being can ask do not have--or need--answers.

People are afraid of knowledge that is not yet theirs.

Remember you have to go at his speed not your own...Adults take longer at this kind of thing then we do, particularly adults...who [haven't] tried new thoughts for a long time...but sometimes adults can go deeper then we can, if we're patient.