Quotes About Open-mindedness

I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.

I am pursuing Truth, and am indifferent whither I am led, if she is my only leader.

I don't care if he's got a tail and tits, just take me to him." The

I have seen human beings who have forged intellectual armor to shield themselves from adversity. They seemed stronger than most. They said, I couldn't care less, and laughed at everything, but when adversity managed to pierce their armor, it caused terrible damage. I have seen human beings suffer from the slightest adversity, the slightest annoyance, but still remain open-minded and sensitive to everything, learning something from each attack.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interest be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons who interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.

Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.

I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than at imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.

The methods of increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant facts, controlling our own bias by discussion with people who have the opposite bias, and cultivating a readiness to discard any hypothesis which has proved inadequate.

I am in no degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed?

What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.

The fact is you cannot be intelligent merely by choosing your opinions. The intelligent man is not the man who holds such-and-such views but the man who has sound reasons for what he believes and yet does not believe it dogmatically. And opinions held for sound reasons have less emotional unity than the opinions of dogmatists because reason is non-party, favouring now one side and now another. That is what people find so unpleasant about it.

In general, if a man says, for instance, that the earth is flat, I am quite willing that he should propagate his opinion as hard as he likes. He may, of course, be right but I do not think he is. In practice you will, I think, do better to assume that the earth is round, although, of course, you may be mistaken. Therefore, I do not think we should go in for complete skepticism, but for a doctrine of degrees of probability.

AÅŸ vrea sa traiesc într-o lume in care educaÅ£ia sa-ÅŸi propun? drept scop libertatatea intelectual? ÅŸi nu inchistarea unor minÅ£i fragede într-o armur? de dogme menite sa le protejeze de-a lungul vieÅ£ii de revelaÅ£ia unor probe impartiale. Lumea are nevoie de inimi deschise ÅŸi de minÅ£i deschise ÅŸi ele nu se pot obÅ£ine printr-un sistem rigid, fie el nou sau vechi.

The world needs open hearts and open minds, and it is not through rigid systems, whether old or new, that these can be derived.

methods of increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant facts, controlling our own bias by discussion with people who have the opposite bias, and cultivating a readiness to discard any hypothesis which has proved inadequate.

Querría ver un mundo en el que la educación tendiese a la libertad mental en lugar de encerrar la mente de la juventud en la rígida armadura del dogma, calculado para protegerla durante toda su vida contra los dardos de la prueba imparcial. El mundo necesita mentes y corazones abiertos, y éstos no pueden derivarse de rígidos sistemas, ya sean viejos o nuevos. BERTRAND RUSELL

Il mondo non ha bisogno di dogmi, ha bisogno di libera ricerca.

Querría ver un mundo en el que la educación tendiese a la libertad mental en lugar de encerrar la mente de la juventud en la rígida armadura del dogma, calculado para protegerla durante toda su vida contra los dardos de la prueba imparcial.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.

To such a man [without philosophy] the world tends to become definite, finite, and obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected.

Ich hätte gern eine Welt, in der das Ziel der Erziehung geistige Freiheit wäre und nicht darin bestünde, den Geist der Jugend in eine Rüstung zu zwängen, die ihn das ganze Leben lang vor den Pfeilen objektiver Beweise schützen soll. Die Welt braucht offene Herzen und geistige Aufgeschlossenheit, und das erreichen wir nicht durch starre Systeme, mögen sie nun alt oder neu sein.