Quotes About Open-mindedness

I grew up in a very culturally diverse area of America, and I am very proud to come from there. I am also proud that my inner circle of friends has never been defined by race but by the content of their character. Any former teammate or anyone who has met me can attest to this, and I pride myself on not being a judgmental person.

If you will read and listen, you will admit a multiplicity of voices and points of view, consider them with some humility, allow them gracious entrance however strident or discordant some of them may sound, then you will grow and change, and each of these voices will become a constituent part of who you become, an atom of growing being. It is literature and only literature than can do this.

Reading exposes is to the experiences and minds of others, makes us challenge our own provinciality, deepens and widens who we are and what we can become.

Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly, the palette with which we paint the story of our lives has more colors.

If you don't like a place, maybe you don't know enough about it... Give a culture the benefit of your open mind.

Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.

Next time someone tells me they believe in God, I'll say 'Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…' If they say 'Just God. I only believe in the one God,' I'll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don't believe in 2,870 gods, and they don't believe in 2,869.

Unlike religious people, I look at all religions equally.

Buddhism has a very beautiful teaching that says the worst thing you can do to your soul is to tell someone their faith is wrong.

assumption prevents us from acknowledging the full humanity

A wise man listens to gain knowledge and not to debate.

For instance, I hated Pearl Jam at the time. I thought they were pompous blowhards. Now, whenever a Pearl Jam song comes on the car radio, I find myself pounding my fist on the dashboard, screaming, "Pearl JAM! Pearl JAM! Now this is rock and roll! Jeremy's SPO-ken! But he's still al-LIIIIIVE!

Most people feel they lack the intelligence to find the right way for them, but this is merely misunderstanding. Intelligence has nothing to do with college degrees or reading books. True intelligence is a willingness to exchange a fallacy for a fact.

belief is the death of intelligence.

when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.

I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions.

Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.

Actually he wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." For some obscure reason, a central distinction had been lost as the years eroded the accurate version of his statement to mean something entirely different and, upon close inspection, entirely silly.44

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Or, at least, so goes a frequently heard quotation attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Another important aspect of our home was respect for ideas.

Get out of your ideological bubble. If most of the people you talk with agree with you, you're wasting your time. You need to engage with people who may disagree or who haven't thought hard about the issues. Reach across to independents, even to Republicans and self-styled Tea Partiers. Find people who are willing to listen to the facts and are open to arguments and ideas, regardless of the label they apply to themselves. We need them.

I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well.

As a job seeker, remember this: You only lack experience if they want it done the same old way.

Always carry with you a little reasonable doubt, should you meet someone who needs to be found innocent.