Quotes About Open-mindedness

Look for opportunities to brainstorm new answers to old problems. You have lived with them for so long that you may have unwittingly given up any hope of solving them. Break through this block, not by finding the single right answer but by finding 10 or 20 new answers—the crazier, the better.

Whatever their many vices, wrote Shushtari, the English welcomed and rewarded talent: 'the English have no arbitrary dismissal,' he noted, 'and every competent person keeps his job until he writes his own request for retirement or resignation. More remarkable still is that they take part in most of the festivals and ceremonies of Muslims and Hindus, mixing with the people. They pay great respect to accomplished scholars of whatever sect.

Those who champion democracy, but make a fetish of never accepting anything they don't agree with -- what advantage do they see in democracy?

God deliver us all from prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.

We must dare to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about 'unthinkable things' because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

We must dare to think unthinkable thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world.

To counter the avoidance of intellectual challenge and responsibility, we must reduce the domination of certainty in education.

If I have not read a book before, it is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.

The true barbarian is he who thinks every thing barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.

Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I shall not be able to find my way across the room, nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

Sam Winter Moon had cautioned him long ago that it was best to believe in all possibilities, that there were more mysteries in the world than a man could ever hope to understand. 13

Si una persona, al sostener una creencia que le fue enseñada en la niñez o de la que fue persuadida más tarde, rebaja y echa al un lado todas las dudas sobre ella que broten en su mente, evita a propósito la lectura de libros y la compañía que la cuestione o la discuta, y ve como impías aquellas preguntas que no puedan contestarse fácilmente sin perturbarla, entonces la vida de esa persona es un único y largo pecado contra la humanidad.

Popper says that the best way out of the problem of having unconscious points of view is to state clearly one's view and to recognize that there are also other points of view.

Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.

I took acres of fertile ignorance up to that place. And they started to pour preconceptions all over it. Like forty tons of cement. No thanks. I got out before it hardened. I did a year, passed

The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.

She was just too curious to stay in a self-imposed mental straight-jacket for very long.

I've noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it's various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

Thus, relativism removes one of our most powerful motives to study the views of the other-the idea that the other might be right and we might be wrong.

Every week I get letters from people worldwide who feel that the possibilian point of view represents their understanding better than either religion or neo-atheism.

Have you ever noticed that? We base our assessment of the intelligence of others almost entirely on how closely their thinking matches our own. I'm sure that there are people out there who violently disagree with me on most things, and I'm broad-minded enough to conceded that they might possibly not be completely idiots, but I much prefer the company of people who agree with me. You might want to think about that.

But few of us really stop to ask ourselves what new information might change our minds, especially on questions of politics and identity. We fall into the trap of confirmation bias, in which rather than updating our prior beliefs, we mould new information into a form that will confirm them.

Respect the elders. Embrace the new. Encourage the impractical and improbable, without bias.