Quotes about Open-mindedness

Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you—until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire—until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others—you will be neither successful nor happy.

Every person should make it his business to gather new ideas from sources other than the environment in which he daily lives and works. The mind becomes withered, stagnant, narrow and closed unless it searches for new ideas.

There is a difference between Wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief. Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage, and belief.

Never judge someone by their relatives.

Someone has said,"Education is going from an unconscious to conscious awareness of one's ignorance."..No one has a corner on wisdom. All the name-dropping in the world does not heighten the significance of our character. If anything, it reduces it. Our acute need is to cultivate a willingness to learn and to remain teachable.

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

There is no hierarchy of values by which one culture has the right to insist on all its own values and deny those of another.

We should always aim to read something different=not only the writers with whom we agree, but those with whom we are ready to do battle. Their point of view challenges us to examine the truth and to test their views...and let us not comment on nor criticize writers of whom we have heard only second-hand, or third-hand without troubling to read their works for ourselves...Don't be afraid of new ideas.

To the children and the innocent it's all the same.