Quotes About Open-mindedness

It's most presumptuous to believe we already know all the answers and will never get any more big surprises.

You must surrender whatever preconceptions you have about music if you're really interested in it.

I think so many people tend to think of faith as blind adherence to a dogma or unquestioned surrender to an authority figure, and the result is losing self-respect and losing our own sense of what is true. And I don't think of faith in those terms at all.

You see, there are few objective limits. What they teach you is useful, but never accept the proposition that just because a solution satisfies a problem, that it must be the only solution.

Vidiš, veoma je malo stvarnih ogreni?enja. Sve ?emu te u?e je korisno, ali nikad ne prihvataj tvrdnju da je neko rešenje *jedino* rešenje samo ako uspe da reši problem.

Exiting the ideological cave, where all our questions are answered and everyone we know agrees with us, is the hardest and most significant step we can take. But if we don't take that step, then we will leave this life no closer to the truth than when we entered it. And that is exactly what it is to live a life not worth living, even if it proves to be the most pleasant sort of existence.

I once heard about a botanist in Hawaii with a knack for finding new species by getting lost in the jungle, by going beyond what he knew and how he knew, by letting experience be larger than his knowledge, by choosing reality rather than the plan.

botanist in Hawaii with a knack for finding new species by getting lost in the jungle, by going beyond what he knew and how he knew, by letting experience be larger than his knowledge, by choosing reality rather than the plan.

L'essentiel est de lire beaucoup. N'importe quoi. Ce qu'on a envie de lire. Le tri se fait après. Et même la mauvaise littérature est nourricière. La seule littérature stérilisante, la littérature prétentieuse, philosophisante, cuistre, est sans danger pour les enfants parce qu'ils ne peuvent pas pénétrer dedans. Ils la rejettent, comme ils tournent le bouton de la T.V. au moment des discours politiques. Ce sont des sages.

THREE QUALITIES ENABLE people to understand the teachings: objectivity, which means an open mind; intelligence, which is the critical faculty to discern the real meaning by checking the teachings of Buddha; and interest and commitment, which means enthusiasm.

You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them. You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.

Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.

The fact that we can't see the beauty in something doesn't suggest that it's not there. Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with a broad enough perspective to see it.

when you judge someone else or their opinion, it really doesn't say anything about the other person, but it says quite a bit about your need to be judgmental.

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

It is all too easy to mistake passion that can change its mind for fundamentalism, which never will.

We should always be open-minded, but the only good reason to believe that something exists is if there is real evidence that it does.

children should be taught not so much what to think as how to think.

Carl Sagan was proud to be agnostic when asked whether there was life elsewhere in the universe. When he refused to commit himself, his interlocutor pressed him for a 'gut feeling' and he immortally replied: 'But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.

As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.

If you were born in Arkansas and you think Christianity is true and Islam false, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.

The fundamentalist Kurt Wise proclaims that all the evidence in the universe would not change his mind. The true scientist, however passionately he may 'believe' in evolution, knows exactly what it would take to change his mind: Evidence.

His way to wisdom was to hear out others who might or might not know any more than he did and then to sift it all through his own mental strainer.

We must remain ready to ask, open-minded enough to be led, and willing to believe despite our bouts of disbelief. Creativity is an act of faith, and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return.