Narrow Minded Quotes & Sayings

When a village ceases to be a community, it becomes oppressive in its narrow conformity. So one becomes an individual and migrates to the city. There, finding others like-minded, one re-establishes a village community. Nowadays only New Yorkers are yokels. — Paul Goodman

The narrow-minded find it convenient to create stereotypes, and then try to fit everybody, everything and every situation into those stereotypes. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Having set its mark on the generation before Cocteau's, symbolism expressed a form of inner dissidence confronting the narrow-minded materialism and utilitarian obsession of the industrial revolution, and hence a reaction to triumphant naturalism, in literature at least. Nourished by medieval, Renaissance, and Romantic art, symbolism, probably the last great backward-looking movement hatched in the West, had given rise to a desire to explore the secrets of the world and the confines of the soul. Beyond its androgynous Mercuries, its pale Narcissuses, and its Orpheuses borne by rosaries of angels, it gave rise to a whole misty alchemy wherein some found their way into esotericism and even into the religious, since the Universe was only the symbol of another world into which entrance was gained not only through poetry, spiritualism, dreams, and the Ideal, but also via the play of analogies and the study of ciphers. — Claude Arnaud

The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on?" That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to consider other possibilities. — Robert Benchley

I've been a Christian for a long time, and I think that Christianity gets a bad rap. I think that people's perception of what a Christian is today is something that is close-minded and narrow, and that's not what I am. — Andie MacDowell

Her chief dread in life, at this period of her development, was that she would appear narrow minded; what she feared next afterwards was that she should be so. — Henry James

As if Japan weren't small enough to begin with, I fail to understand why it is necessary to think of it in even smaller units. No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it. We are, after all, at a point where it is almost narrow-minded to think merely in geocentric terms. Human beings have launched satellites into outer space, and yet they still grovel on earth looking at their own feet like wild dogs. What is to become of our planet? — Akira Kurosawa

When you make a film, you like to run it with an audience. They tell you you're narrow-minded or subjective, or that seems too long, or that doesn't work. — Richard Donner

He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes. — Molly Ivins

Patriotism, currently, is nothing but the deadly evolution of narrow minded politics which has distorted language. — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Isn't it curious that narrow-minded people are often the most thickheaded? — Paul Frank Baer

The world is as large as the range of one's interests. A narrow-minded man has a narrow outlook. The walls of his world shut out the broader horizon of affairs. Prejudice can maintain walls that no invention can remove. — Joseph Jastrow

Because I'm sure that as soon as things really get back to "normal," once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they'll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were. — Max Brooks

Globally the Greens have arisen like a spontaneous combustion, a reaction to the narrow-minded state-backed exploitation of resources and wealth for a few at the expense of the many. — Bob Brown

If I had to choose between a narrow-minded woman or a man who was an enlightened thinker, I would vote for the man. — Marianne Williamson

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. — Vincent Van Gogh

Catastrophe Theory is-quite likely-the first coherent attempt (since Aristotelian logic) to give a theory on analogy. When narrow-minded scientists object to Catastrophe Theory that it gives no more than analogies, or metaphors, they do not realise that they are stating the proper aim of Catastrophe Theory, which is to classify all possible types of analogous situations. — Rene Thom

A good work can be communicated across languages ... [provided one does not] fall into the trap of narrow-minded nationalistic or chauvinistic thinking. — Gao Xingjian

Some people even think that I'm still just not right for it [ballet]. And I think it's shocking because they hear those words from critics saying I'm too bulky, I'm too busty. And then they meet me in person and they're like, you look like a ballerina. And I think it's just something maybe that I will never escape from, those people who are narrow-minded. But my mission, my voice, my story, my message, is not for them. And I think it's more important to think of the people that I am influencing and helping to see a broader picture of what beauty is. — Misty Copeland

As our planet takes action to cast out its manmade poisons and heal its man-caused wounds, many human inhabitants will no doubt give way to fear. Many will cling to seemingly powerful we're-God's-chosen-people religions, hoping that by so doing they will be saved from the wrath of a Vengeful God (not recognizing that the approaching "vengeance" will in reality be man's own actions coming back at him - and not recognizing that the Infinite Universal Power is far more than the narrow-minded gatekeeper of an exclusive Spiritual Country Club). — Benjamin Hoff

The bigoted, the narrow minded, the stubborn, and the perpetually optimistic have all stopped learning. — Charles Hayes

What has motivated some people to leave Churches of Christ? . . . those of us who stayed. . . need to . . . do a better job of presenting ideas and practices that we believe are non-negotiable. — Flavil R. Yeakley Jr.

Piper- I didn't like Mr. Wilder.
Eliza- He's not so bad, Piper, if you overlook his tendency to be condescending.
Agatha- And narrow-minded and chauvinistic.
Gloria- I think a nice cup of tea is in order before we continue our discussion of Mr. Wilder and his many faults. May I suggest we make ourselves comfortable in the parlor? — Jen Turano

Never keep your brain so full that people's opinions take up every pew in your mind, and truth has to be "born again" before it is believed. — Shannon L. Alder

Often in history we see that religion, which was meant to raise us and make us better and nobler, has made people behave like beasts. Instead of bringing enlightenment of them, it has often tried to keep them in the dark; instead of broadening their minds, it has frequently made them narrow-minded and intolerant of others. — Jawaharlal Nehru

What's the point? To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for a narrow-minded or embittered man. — Anton Chekhov

When you can program your own life, you're just going to program what you already like. Because of that, people's taste becomes much more narrow-minded. — Rob Zombie

A long time ago I'd given up on religion, thinking it wasn't for me when so many were bigoted, narrow-minded, and cruel. — V.C. Andrews

Intelligence arouses fear and respect, the lack of it keeps one on the narrow minded road of disrespect, stupidity and inferiority complex. — Michael Bassey Johnson

The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader, and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce. — Mary Shelley

Maturity means acknowledging that Romantic love might constitute only a narrow, and perhaps rather mean-minded, aspect of emotional life, one principally focused on a quest to find love rather than to give it; to be loved rather than to love. Children — Alain De Botton

Now that the wars are coming to an end, I wish you to prosper in peace. May all mortals from now on live like one people in concord and for mutual advancement. Consider the world as your country, with laws common to all and where the best will govern irrespective of tribe. I do not distinguish among men, as the narrow-minded do, both among Greeks and Barbarians. I am not interested in the descendance of the citizens or their racial origins. I classify them using one criterion: their virtue. For me every virtuous foreigner is a Greek and every evil Greek worse than a Barbarian. If differences ever develop between you never have recourse to arms, but solve them peacefully. If necessary, I should be your arbitrator. — Alexander The Great

Why be narrow-minded, why cut ourselves off from any of these rich heritages when ... we have the freedom to make the most of the best in all techniques? There are no prohibitions against it. All it takes is a little wisdom, imagination and courageous experimentation. — Michael Chekhov

Not once after graduating from Bryan was I asked to make a case for the scientific feasibility of miracles, but often I was asked why Christians aren't more like Jesus. I may have met one or two people who rejected Christianity because they had difficulties with the deity of Christ, but most rejected Christianity because they thought it means becoming judgmental, narrow-minded, intolerant, and unkind. People didn't argue with me about the problem of evil; they argued about why Christians aren't doing more to alleviate human suffering, support the poor, and oppose violence and war. Most weren't looking for a faith that provided all the answers; they were looking for one in which they were free to ask questions. — Rachel Held Evans

A narrow mind and a fat head invariably come on the same person. — Zig Ziglar

Homunculi are bogeymen only if they duplicate entire the talents they are rung in to explain. If one can get a team or committee of relatively ignorant, narrow-minded, blind homunculi to produce the intelligent behaviour of the whole, this is progress. — Daniel Dennett

Avoid being narrow-minded; it's a fat world. — Benny Bellamacina

Empathy has some unfortunate features - it is parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate. We're often at our best when we're smart enough not to rely on it. — Paul Bloom

What then are the benefits of being mentally flexible? Imagine a storm brewing. Intense winds are blowing hard. Stiff trees are breaking under the pressure while softer more flexible trees are bending and will rise again when the strong winds subside. Now turn this image onto human beings. People who are narrow minded, opinionated, stubborn and bullheaded are more likely to crack under pressure than people who take up a more flexible attitude towards life. It is the difference between bending and breaking under pressure. — Gudjon Bergmann

A politician is not as narrow-minded as he forces himself to be. — Will Rogers

Fanatics don't wanna see anything from another standpoints. — Toba Beta

I know I come off as a little too optimistic, because I'm sure that as soon as things really get back to "normal," once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they'll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were. But then again, can what we all went through really just go away? I once heard an African proverb, "One cannot cross a river without getting wet." I'd like to believe that. — Max Brooks

My father was a Republican, and he couldn't stand what Franklin Delano Roosevelt was doing to the country. I always say I'm a mean-spirited narrow-minded right-wing, conservative Christian ... I start out with that, and if you don't like it, you can lump it. I am not politically correct. — Jane Russell

You need to search your awareness and consider the limitless possibilities of existence in all things and not be so narrow-minded in your self-discovery. — Frederick Lenz

The idea of freedom can never be disassociated from real Prussia. The real Prussian spirit means a synthesis between restraint and freedom, between voluntary subordination and conscientious leadership, between pride in oneself and consideration for others, between rigor and compassion. Unless a balance is kept between these qualities, the Prussian spirit is in danger of degenerating into soulless routine and narrow-minded dogmatism. — Henning Von Tresckow

So you believe in blood sucking fangers, but you don't believe in the existence of werewolves. What kind of narrow minded crap is that? — J.L. McCoy

Russian may seem narrow-minded, impudent, or even stupid people, but can only pray for those who are against them. — Winston Churchill

Deficiency in judgement is properly that which is called stupidity; and for such a failing we know no remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned who in the application of their science betray a lamentable degree this irremediable want.] — Immanuel Kant

When faced with difficulties, a humble, understanding, appreciative and selfless person finds it easy to win a friend. On the other hand, a temperamental, egoistic, condensing, self-absorbed, self-conceited and narrow-minded person who lacks the basic sense of humility easily loses friends when in distress. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York! — Jules Verne

They were liberating Harrisonville, showing the hypocrites and phonies and $$$-squirrelers and chokeragged Yesmen some puffed-up balls. They were widening the mental horizons of a town more narrow-minded than its streets; they were missionaries laboring amon their bloodkin: montheytheistic theocentric cousins and uncles who swore allegiance to Uncle Sam, Jim Crow, Oral Roberts, and Dale Carnegie; they were waging their impudent revolution against people they'd cowedly called "sir" all their teenage lives. — Joe Eszterhas

He was defiantly narrow-minded, barely educated, and at least close to functionally illiterate. His beliefs were powerful but consistently dubious, and made him seem, in the words of The New Yorker, "mildly unbalanced." He did not like bankers, doctors, liquor, tobacco, idleness of any sort, pasteurized milk, Wall Street, overweight people, war, books or reading, J. P. Morgan and Co., capital punishment, tall buildings, college graduates, Roman Catholics, or Jews. Especially he didn't like Jews. Once he hired a Hebraic scholar to translate the Talmud in a manner designed to make Jewish people appear shifty and avaricious. — Bill Bryson

Mom and Dad liked to make a big point about never surrendering to fear or to prejudice or to the narrow-minded conformist sticks-in-the-mud who tried to tell everyone else what was proper. — Jeannette Walls

We breathe the free air, we have the best looking men and handsomest women, and if they envy our position, well they may, for they are a poor, narrow minded, pinch-backed race of man, who chain themselves down to the law of monogamy and live all their days under the dominion of one wife. They aught to be ashamed of such conduct, and the still fouler channel which flows from their practices. — George A. Smith

I had tried to go to college, and I didn't really fit in. I went to a real narrow-minded school where people gave me a lot of trouble, and I was hounded off the campus - I just looked different and acted different, so I left school. — Bruce Springsteen

Every woman should see herself looking uniquely breathtaking, in something tailored to celebrate her body, so that she is better able to appreciate her own beauty and better equipped to withstand the ideals of our narrow-waisted, narrow- minded culture. — Susan Jane Gilman

A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow-minded misanthrope; a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed. — Herman Melville

Devices like iPhones and BlackBerries invite (demand!) constant use. They are like packets of cigarettes that ask us never to leave them alone or bottles of pills that seek to change our minds and punish us when we try to withdraw from them. We think cellphones are connecting us, but they are turning us into a society of rude, impatient, narrow-minded, stressed-out, aggressive, and isolated individuals. They invite reaction rather than reflection. — Richard Watson

We are helping our Somali brothers get rid of these narrow-minded attackers. The Somali people do not support the extremists, they are on the side of our soldiers. — Yoweri Museveni

One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that , in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid. — James D. Watson

If you come out with racist comments, then I believe you shouldn't be allowed to come to a football match. Don't be so narrow minded, you're bigger than that. — Rio Ferdinand

If I had to marry someone, it wouldn't be a bossy little gal with a tongue like barbed-wire and a mind about as narrow. — Jim Thompson

To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for narrow-minded or embittered man. — Anton Chekhov

This is my country, that is your country; these are the conceptions of narrow souls - to the liberal minded the whole world is a family. — Virchand Gandhi

Narrow-minded provincialism: Sad to say but true
I am more interested in the mountain lions of Utah, the wild pigs of Arizona, than I am in the fate of all the Arabs of Araby, all the Wogs of Hindustan, all the Ethiopes of Abyssinia ... — Edward Abbey

Why, I've seen Kentuckians who hated whiskey, Virginians who weren't descended from Pocahontas, Indianians who hadn't written a novel, Mexicans who didn't wear velvet trousers with silver dollars sewed along the seams, funny Englishmen, spendthrift Yankees, cold-blooded Southerners, narrow- minded Westerners, and New Yorkers who were too busy to stop for an hour on the street to watch a one-armed grocer's clerk do up cranberries in paper bags. Let a man be a man and don't handicap him with the label of any section. — O. Henry

Grace is openness. By remaining open, you let go of your ego and narrow-minded views, and allow divine grace to express itself through you. — Mata Amritanandamayi

In theory, the Internet provides an opportunity to widen knowledge-to see beyond screens and neighborhoods into a broader universe-and yet the first thing many people want to do is wall themselves off and broadcast how narrow-minded they are. It seems to absolutely miss the point of the experience. — Jason Gay

A compass is narrow-minded-it always points to the magnetic north ... We must discipline ourselves, personally, to fight any deviation from the course Jesus set for us. We cannot be tolerant of any other course. — Billy Graham

If someone is a straight jazzhead, or a straight metalhead, or straight classical, they have a very narrow range of what they allow into their lives. But the people who listen to what we put out into the world have to be open-minded. Because we're so pluralist. — John Zorn

Those policies [of Jean-Marie Le Pen ]I find repellent. I believe many people right across consist the world do. There is no future in that type of narrow minded racism and nationalism. — Rachel Maddow

She'd seen the shows on television, and watched interview with racists, but he exhibited none of those narrow-minded traits, except for the tattoos on his body. — Kassanna

I've always noticed that nobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and I think it likely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do with themselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to deal with. A nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more time to dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is the gainer. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

The narrow-minded who undertake any work will never be satisfied. They cannot understand the actions of those who are large hearted and broad-minded. — Sathya Sai Baba

Life was like that when you were fifteen and knobby-kneed and you only had a handful of choices. Your world was small and cruel and narrow-minded and breathtaking. — Colleen Curran

That's right,' said Morin smoothly. 'We had better just let Marfa Timofeyevna finish keeping us on the straight and narrow.' Somehow his tone as he said this managed to suggest both that censorship was silly, and that it was silly to mind it. Galich conceded Morin a small internal round of (Applause), his headache whispering in his temples. He was highly accomplished himself at finding pleasure-giving, urbane descriptions of what couldn't be helped, but Morin, moreover, had hit the precise note of the moment, liberally-minded yet unchallenging, ironic yet inoffensive. The — Francis Spufford

You may call a person vain, and they will smile; you may call them immoral, and they may even feel flattered - but call them narrow-minded and they have done with you. — J. E. Buckrose

Cities with a black middle class provide the narrow minded an opportunity to realize that cultural differences are largely economic. — Dov Davidoff

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

They were people who had no doubt whatsoever that the more narrow-minded they became, the closer they got to heaven. — Haruki Murakami

Lebanon, Israel, Ireland, South Africa - wherever there is a bleeding sore on the body of the world, the same hard-eyed narrow-minded fanatics are busy, indifferent to life, in love with death. — J.M. Coetzee

Wide horizons lead the soul to broad ideas; circumscribed horizons engender narrow ideas; this sometimes condemns great hearts to become small minded.
Broad ideas hated by narrow ideas, - this is the very struggle of progress. — Victor Hugo

You've got to try a little kindness, yes show a little kindness Just shine your light for everyone to see. And if you try a little kindness, Then you'll overlook the blindness Of narrow-minded people on the narrow-minded streets. — Glen Campbell

When I was young, I despised old people. I was provincial and narrow-minded. It's the reason I stayed stupid so long. If you only get involved with young people you don't learn anything about the world. — Edmund White

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church

How to be in harmony with the cosmos? It seems that certain preliminaries are indispensable: Rid yourself of all beliefs; leave metaphysics to the sectarians of the absurd; understand that hope is fear gone bad; confront reality directly; stop upholding the romantic dream of realization; forget sentimental neurosis; play with your own limits; look at your confusion; confront life without the bric-a-brac of the religious and the spiritual - without, for all that, becoming a narrow-minded materialist who would make a new God out of rationalism; dare to be alone; do not oppose Essence against reality; give yourself over to the pleasures of pure subjectivity; understand that everything is real; and finally, one day, know exhilarating silence. — Daniel Odier

Hollom was going forward along the larboard gangway: Nagel, an able seamen but one of the most sullen, bloody-minded and argumentative of the Defenders, was coming aft on the same narrow passage. They were abreast of one another; and Nagel walked straight on without the slightest acknowledgement other than a look of elaborate unconcern. — Patrick O'Brian

We talk about people being narrow-minded when they have a limited sense of possibility. Well, that's exactly what they are. They are narrow-frequencied, if you like. When we talk about people awakening, it's awakening to a greater range of possibilities, of awareness and frequencies. — David Icke

It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one. Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things. — Lawrence G. Lovasik

Everybody that's living in this earth is living in a situation. It's not narrow-minded to the point where everybody is serious and nobody has a personality. I think people die telling jokes. — Mike Epps

The most learned are often the most narrow minded. — William Hazlitt

Lawrence argued that despite posing as Islamic reformists "with all the narrow minded bigotry of the puritan," ibn-Saud and his Wahhabists were hardly representative of Islam. Instead, as he warned in "The Politics of Mecca," the Wahhabist sect was composed of marginal medievalists, "and if it prevailed, we would have in place of the tolerant, rather comfortable Islam of Mecca and Damascus, the fanaticism of Nejd ... intensified and swollen by success. — Scott Anderson

But when you're a teenage boy, you can be narrow-minded about things that are girlie, things that are frivolous, things that are pop. Boys always want to be taken seriously, and they always want to transcend the tawdry emotion of the pop singer
it's a fairly standard response to the rigors of young manhood ... This isn't so different from how people talk about culture now. Rock epics are for boys; pop hits are for girls. When you're a boy, pop is scary because it's a maneater. You sing along with a pop song, you turn into a girl. That takes some degree of emotional risk. — Rob Sheffield

He is not stubborn, not narrow-minded, not lazy, not stupid. There was just no easy explanation. So it was left up in the air, a kind of mystery that one gives up on because there is no sense in just going round and round and round looking for an answer that's not there. — Robert M. Pirsig

You're so narrow-minded! You live in the same village you grew up in, you run the family business, you're buying a nursery down the road ... you're practically still in the womb. So before you lecture me on the way to live my life, try living one of your own, OK? — Sophie Kinsella

You accept food and music from every part of the world without reservation, don't you? You don't have to be Danish to eat Danish pastries or Italian to eat pasta and pizzas. You don't have to be a German to enjoy Beethoven or an Indian to listen to sitar music. Why then, when it comes to wisdom, do we become so narrow-minded? — Francois Gautier

The TSA gets all upset about things like razor blades and pocket knives. They're narrow minded that way. — Rex Cutty

I think in many ways narrow minded-attitudes lead to extreme thinking. — Dalai Lama

As yet, if a man has no feeling for art he is considered narrow-minded, but if he has no feeling for science this is considered quite normal. This is a fundamental weakness. — Isidor Isaac Rabi

I'm not trying to be evasive, but when I say yes and no, I say 'yes' because there are narrow-minded people that won't look past the logo and 'no' because 'American Idol' put me in front of millions of people and I would not have a career without 'Idol.' — Bo Bice