Quotes About Open-mindedness

I urge my critics to get passports and see the world.

Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.

We meet aliens every day who have something to give us. They come in the form of people with different opinions.

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

I was raised Catholic, but then I discovered Buddhism, and I used to have a boyfriend who was a Scientologist, and they are all good religions that help people. As far as I'm concerned, you can have all three religions at once and it's okay!

I used to be homophobic, but as I got older, I realized that wasn't the way to do things. I don't discriminate against anybody for their sexual preference, for their skin color... that's immature.

It's useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.

What works for me is simply to read a lot of stuff throughout the year - not with a particular story or theme in mind, but just because you never know what might be useful or interesting in the long run. I much prefer to just absorb a lot of stuff and let the old unconscious chew down on it over time.

Groupthink can become a serious issue - old ideas stay around after they're useful, and new ideas too often don't get a fair hearing.

The idea of taking what's useful and discarding the rest is something I say to myself almost on a daily basis.

It's useless to criticize things that people love and something that speaks to them.

I'm surprised at the extent of the bigotry. But it really plays out when companies or schools take a side and prohibit the other platform at all. We Mac users should be good even when the other side is bad. We should do what we can to accept the other platforms.

True respect means taking other people's beliefs seriously and assuming they are adult and intelligent enough to be able to cope with it if you tell them, clearly and civility, why you think they are totally, utterly and disastrously wrong.

When I'm asked who my audience is, I say someone with an open mind, which is not a vacant one and sometimes a liberal mind is not the same thing as an open one.

Sometimes the greatest meals on vacations are the ones you find when Plan A falls through.

My books are anti-absolutist and deeply distrustful of any religious stance that precludes the validity of any other.

Part of the beauty of Silicon Valley is that people generally encourage you to think crazy. It's the hypothesis that there's nothing sacred that can't be changed.

I always say that people should not rush to change religions. There is real value in finding the spiritual resources you need in your home religion.

Our parents all experimented with raising us in a fairly loose, unorthodox way. A huge emphasis was placed on creativity, and our artistic efforts were never dismissed as childish. There was a sense that we - kids and grown-ups - all had the potential to make something of value. Our drawings were not simply destined for the refrigerator.

To overcome adverse circumstances, you have to learn to overcome your own hang-ups, values, and idiosyncrasies in order to value other people, cultures, and ideas.

My favorite phrase those days, which I saw on a Family Dog poster, was "May the Baby Jesus Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Mind," which came from a Captain Beefheart record.

To really live a life in search of knowledge, you must admit when you are wrong.

Being right is the enemy of staying right because it leads you to forget the way the world works

I don't need you to agree with me, she said quietly. I'll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It's an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion - and action.