Quotes About Open-mindedness

It's the person who tells you they listen to a lot of different music with an almost resigned sigh of futility that you want to pay attention to because they know that at best, they'll only hear a small part of a tiny drop in the great ocean of music.

The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.

A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas.

To say the least, a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one's judgement of others.

Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance.

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.

I know that most men—not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever, and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic problems—can very seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as to oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty—conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.

If once we begin judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left!

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him...

There is never any 'impossible' with him. That's a thing I hate! Everything is possible.

Those who don't believe in the spiritual foundations of their faith, who only pay lip service to the outer shell of their religious rituals, cannot be tolerant of others.

there was a new feature in Pierre which won him the favor of all people: this was the recognition of the possibility for each person of thinking, feeling, and looking at things in his own way; the recognition of the impossibility of changing a person's opinion with words. This legitimate peculiarity of each person, which formerly had troubled and irritated Pierre, now constituted the basis of the sympathy and interest he took in people.

A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.

I want to look at the work. I don't care if its white or black. I don't agree that "If you're white, you can't write". I want to see what they can do. I also don't believe that because I am a man, I can't write about women. I had better quit writing, if I can't write about women. Why can't women write about men? It's talent that's important.

I'd date someone younger or older age doesn't matter to me. Or looks, really - it's all about maturity.

There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

Today I will let go of the need to judge others. I no longer need others to be wrong just to build my own self-worth. I will loosen my rigid perceptions of people, knowing that they have the right to be who they are. Like me, they are doing the best they can.

as a child, I was an avid reader. And despite reading hundreds of books about straight people, I did not grow up to embrace the heterosexual lifestyle. Similarly, someone who is heterosexual is not going to turn gay from reading a book that features a child being raised by two moms.

La gente che non ha opinioni, né un minimo di esperienza tende ad essere curiosa, non odiosa.

Religion dictates, spirituality invites.

We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut."

Young minds - young brains - need stories and ideas like the ones in those [censored and banned] books in order to grow. They need ideas that you disagree with. They need ideas that I disagree with. Or they'll never be able to figure out what ideas they believe in.

shake him up. Get him out of his comfort zone so he could stop sneering at everybody else who was out of theirs. Get him thinking about something besides his own neuroses for a change.

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'