100 Quotes About Open Mindedness

Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. Malcolm X

An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else. C.s. Lewis

There’s usually more than one way to complete a task. I will not stay stuck in my ways. I will remain motivated and open-minded. Izey Victoria Odiase

It's okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. That doesn't give you the right to deny any sense they might make. Nor does it give you a right to accuse someone of poorly expressing their beliefs just because you don't like what they are saying. Learn to recognize good writing when you read it, even if it means overcoming your pride and opening your mind beyond what is comfortable. . Ashly Lorenzana

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. Charles Darwin

We Destroy Because We HateWe Hate Because We FearWe Fear Because We Don’t UnderstandWe Don’t Understand Because We Won’t LearnIlluminate your mind & Educate yourself! Unknown

The experience of seeing how our thought and our words and our ideas have been confined by the limitation of our experience is one which is salutary and is in a certain sense good for a man's morals as well as good for his pleasure. It seems to us [scientists] that this is an opening up of the human spirit , avoiding its provincialism and narrowness. J. Robert Oppenheimer

Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Virginia Woolf

All the systems which explain so precisely why the world is as it is and why it can never be otherwise, have always called forth in me the same kind of uneasiness one has when face to face with the regulations displayed under the glaring lights of a prison cell. Even if one had been born in prison and had never seen the stars or seas or woods, one would instinctively know of timeless freedom in unlimited space. My evil star, however, had fated me to be born in times when only the sharply demarcated and precisely calculable where in fashion.. "Of course, I am on the Right, on the Left, in the Centre; I descend from the monkey; I believe only what I see; the universe is going to explode at this or that speed" - we hear such remarks after the first words we exchange, from people whom we would not have expected to introduce themselves as idiots. If one is unfortunate enough to meet them again in five years, everything is different except their authoritative and mostly brutal assuredness. Now they wear a different badge in their buttonhole; and the universe now shrinks at such a speed that your hair stands on end. Unknown

What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life, is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before, the straining to encompass in one's glance at the varied world the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity, a fearlessness of growth, of search, of looking, that enlarges the private and the public world. And yet, in our particular society, it is the narrowed and narrowing view of life that often wins . Alice Walker

No harm in listening. Alexei's a child, not a wizard. We don't lose control of our brains by listening. Katherine Rundell

Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. Unknown

Character that is fruit-producing can be summed up in the mastery of these 5 qualities: morals, but a sense of humor; love, but respect for criticism; intelligence without pretense; humility without self-loathing; and a mind open, but with solid convictions. Criss Jami

If you are going to judge others it is wisest to do so individually not collectively and on your own direct experience of them personally. But first - and throughout - examine yourself closely. Blurred vision can often occur due to the lens, perspective and perceptions of the viewer projected onto the object that it sees. Be wary of taking to the judges seat. Above all meet at treat yourself and everyone else mindfully, compassionately with humanity. Rasheed Ogunlaru

When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Charles Darwin

Open your eyes, mind and heart - and then (only then) you will see Rasheed Ogunlaru

The only way to change someone's mind is to connect with them from the heart. Rasheed Ogunlaru

Go forward in your beliefs and teachings, educate the open-minded and be humble to the ones who aren’t. Lauren Lola

...sometimes when you are lost for direction, you are open to a new way of seeing. Lauren Lola

The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set Sengcan

I would rather have strong enemies than a world of passive individualists. In a world of passive individualists nothing seems worth anything simply because nobody stands for anything. That world has no convictions, no victories, no unions, no heroism, no absolutes, no heartbeat. That world has rigor mortis. Criss Jami

God is not a God of confusion, although at times one's judgment, for a period, may become clouded in the mi(d)st of one's growth process. I stopped fooling myself into thinking that Christ is always for the cool kids and never for those upright and uptight religious people everybody hates. Criss Jami

The perception of other people and the intersubjective world is problematic only for adults. The child lives in a world which he unhesitatingly believes accessible to all around him. He has no awares of himself or of others as private subjectives, nor does he suspect that all of us, himself included, are limited to one certain point of view of the world. That is why he subjects neither his thoughts, in which he believes as they present themselves, to any sort of criticism. He has no knowledge of points of view. For him men are empty heads turned towards one single, self-evident world where everything takes place, even dreams, which are, he thinks, in his room, and even thinking, since it is not distinct from words. Maurice MerleauPonty

The author relates the progress of inoculation against smallpox in America with the interaction between an African slave named Onisimus whose homeland knew how to treat the malady and and leading clergyman Cotton Mather who was curious and open-minded enough to listen to him. Robert J. Allison

We need to start asking ourselves, does religion make people narrow minded or open minded? Unarine Ramaru

Pride is a fallacy. None of us are greater than the sum of our parts. Eric Hirzel

People are going to come into your life, and God is going to use them to help you. To them you’re insignificant and don’t matter. They are not going to understand you, or even see the point of why God had you hang in there with them for so long. Remember this: Sometimes meeting someone has nothing to do with what you can provide for him or her and everything to do with what God needs you to recognize in that person. If you didn’t understand the message, God will keep sending the same person or situation into your life. Shannon L. Alder

The Word frees us from smallness of mind (1 Kings 4:29) and from threatening confinements (Psalm 18:19). John Piper

I believe that if you can't agree with how they think, then it's better to learn from their difference. Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Past experience doesn't go away, so the secret is to accept, embrace and learn from it. However the key to the secret, is to keep it at bay and be open minded about the future from the second after the experience and never let the experience be the bar or commission of anything thereafter. Unarine Ramaru

The one thing that I want every single child to have experienced at some point in their life, as part of their education, is to have some idea they hold to be true, and at the very basis of their being, proved to be wrong. Because that opens your mind to the realization that the world is different than you thought it would be, and you have to begin to open your mind to the possibilities of existence. And opening your mind frees you, it doesn't constrain you. It makes the world more wonderful, more exciting, and more worth living in. . Lawrence M. Krauss

A different species a different set of values a world completely unlike your own. There is a feeling you can only get when you meet the unknown and open your mind. - Nakajima (Gin no Saji) Hiromu Arakawa

We have eyelids but not earlids, for the ears are the portals of learning, and Nature wanted to keep them wide open. Unknown

All a hardliner has to do is to keep the door of his mind open! And then, the light will visit him! Only in light we can see the truths! Mehmet Murat Ildan

Let us not despise the woman who is neither mother nor daughter nor wife. Let us not limit our esteem to family life, narrow our tolerance to simple egotism. Given that heaven rejoices more at the repentance of one sinner than over a hundred good men who have never sinned, let us endeavor to make heaven rejoice. We may be rewarded with interest. Let us leave along the path the alms of our forgiveness for those whose earthly desires have marooned them, so that a divine hope may save them, and, as the wise old women say when they prescribe a remedy of their own invention, if it doesn't help, at least it can't hurt. Alexandre Dumas Fils

To reach the high notes in life, you must open your heart to sing. Caron Kamps Widden

Live with an open mind and an open heart. Always choose love over fear and kindness over cruelty. Laurence Overmire

People who don’t know how to use their minds can’t really know how to use their hearts either. Vironika Tugaleva

We must quit thinking we know everything, and quit placing "knowledge" over kindness and compassion. Bryant McGill

Travel is the best teacher. The only way to an open mind is by taking a plane out into the open world. C. Joybell C.

Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them! A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts. And in order to do this, these thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so that they are capable, finally, of maintaining a natural flexibility. All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others; they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar. Night minds, minds of darkness. Joseph Joubert

Don't waste today by talking about yesterday until it's finally tomorrow. Tim Fargo

If you cannot be open-minded, then you do not possess your ideas, your ideas possess you. Bryant McGill

No person can open another person, All we can do is wait. And then work with the openness when it occur.s. Unknown

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain. Unknown

Whenever I hear people clucking about the decline of civilization, what's wrong with young people, how vulgar popular culture is, how confusing and frightening they find the internet, alarms go off. I know I'm around somebody whose hinges are rusting. Death will be bad enough, but for me, this early harbinger is more fearsome, because a part of one's spirit and openness and ability to learn and grow disappears. Jon Katz

If you really have an open mind, you would surely discover that every race has some good and bad people in it. Therefore, it would be very unwise to condemn an entire race just because you encountered some negative minded individuals from it. Unknown

When you read without an open mind, you're already filtering ideas and intended message. Selective reading contributes to wilful ignorance. Unarine Ramaru

I believe one of the most sacrificial acts of love adoptive parents can do is to give up their preconceptions and agendas about what their child's views "should" be and be open to hear the conflicting emotions and thoughts their child often experiences. Sherrie Eldridge

The spiritual freedom we seek cannot be found by grasping at, retreating to, or protecting our perceived safe spaces. Our freedom lies in remaining open continuously, not only to Life's changes but also to the Divine Light within us and others. Peter Santos

That just goes to show, remarked Pearlie, that you must never judge a woman in a kimono or a bathing suit. Edna Ferber

The problem will never be diversity, the challenging of tradition or the one person that questions the way life should be. The person that shows the world that this is wrong, there is a perspective you didn't consider, this is worth fighting for and being different is a blessing, will always be the solution for change. Shannon L. Alder

Always be respectful and open-minded when listening to another man's beliefs. What you reject today could be your mantra tomorrow. Man's evolution is all about transformations. An unexpected experience you have one day can change you forever. Suzy Kassem

A true Democratic Spirit is up there with religious faith and emotional maturity and all those other top-of-the- Maslow- Pyramid-type qualities that people spend their whole lives working on. A Democratic Spirit's constituent rigor and humility and self-honesty are, in fact, so hard to maintain on certain issues that it's almost irresistibly tempting to fall in with some established dogmatic camp and to follow that camp's line on the issue and to let your position harden within the camp and become inflexible and to believe that he other camps are either evil or insane and to spend all your time and energy trying to shout over them. David Foster Wallace

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view. George Eliot

Remain open-minded, even when you believe yourself to be a king among peasants. You never know what blessings can be gained or crises averted just by listening. A.J. Darkholme

Some people like living in black and white worlds. Let them stay there. Appreciate all the colors you see in your world though. Ashly Lorenzana

The beliefs which we have the most warrant for have no safeguard, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded. John Stuart Mill

Renewal requires opening yourself up to new ways of thinking and feeling Deborah Day

Create inclusion - with simple mindfulness that others might have a different reality from your own. Patti Digh

The author determines that the bitterest struggles are for one side of the truth to the suppression of the other side. Edith Hamilton

Open-mindedness is a precondition for generating new ideas, but focusing on the problem is almost equally important. Eraldo Banovac

The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle; reinvent. Build a tangled bank. Steven Johnson

The author gives an interesting naval etymology of the word "opportunity". It referred to days in which sailing ships had to wait outside a port for the appropriate tide, which then was their chance until the next tide. Mark Batterson

... But these skeptics are only selectively skeptical. They think themselves enlightened for resisting all this new proof and remaining steadfast in mistrusting anything that someone else says. But it is a false enlightenment to accept only those ideas that align with one's worldview and reject those that don't. Ken Ilgunas

Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut. Jodi Picoult

Having an open mind is the most important precondition for creatingnew ideas. Eraldo Banovac

At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Carl Sagan

If you open your mind more than you open your mouth, you will open your world more than you open your doubt. Robert J. Braathe

Elliston thought consistency less important than vitality and intelligence and passion. David Halberstam

If someone chooses to live a certain way, and it doesn’t infringe on anyone’s freedom, it’s their choice to make. Frank Sonnenberg

Have a humble heart & an open-mind and you'll soon be given glimpses beyond the veil of your beliefs and understandings... growing wiser, and believing deeper. Russell Kyle

Genius has less to do with the size of your mind than how open it is. Shane Snow

The grandest form of delusion is misconstruing the obvious. Persons with an open, inquisitive, and intuitive mind can detect hidden clues that aggressive, narrow-minded, and impatient rationalist fail to perceive. Kilroy J. Oldster

[B]egin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in. Alan Alda