Quotes & Sayings About Open Mindedness

Open mindedness is not blank mindedness, open mindedness is being prepared to change your view when presented with a better set of proofs and arguments. — Stephen Breyer

The strength of one's opinion should not exceed their knowledge on the matter. — Eric Hirzel

One of the many lessons I hope I've learned is how much I underestimated people, their open-mindedness and their willingness to understand. I think, moreover, I underestimated the degree to which everyone has a story. So my advice, for whatever it's worth, is to trust readers, trust the truth and trust the power of storytelling. — Jeannette Walls

According to an equally lovingly preserved English translation of the prospectus, the purpose of Ibuka's firm was "to establish an ideal factory that stresses a spirit of freedom and open-mindedness, and where engineers with sincere motivation can exercise their technological skills to the highest level." We shall, he pledged, "eliminate any unfair profit-seeking exercises" and "seek expansion not only for the sake of size." Further, "we shall carefully select employees ... we shall avoid to have [sic] formal positions for the mere sake of having them, and shall place emphasis on a person's ability, performance and character, so that each — Simon Winchester

Open your eyes
Open your ears
Open your mind
Open your heart
They are your portals to joy — Lisa Cypers Kamen

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.

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

Etermination is the most important quality in a founder, open-mindedness and willingness to change your idea are key, and all startups face rejection at first. — Jessica Livingston

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

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

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

Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake. — Richard Rorty

A man who believes everything can be explained by science is just as ignorant as someone who believes everything can be explained by religion. — Zack W. Van

In my view, it's irreverence, foolish confidence and naivety combined with persistence, open mindedness and a continual ability to learn that created Facebook, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, Apple, Juniper, AOL, Sun Microsystems and others. — Vinod Khosla

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

I actually do propose open-mindedness, but open-mindedness to the Word of God. — Eric Ludy

We have learned that to enable learning, an environment must be trusting, humanistic, and positive. It must promote high emotional engagement; mutual accountability; open-mindedness; permission to speak freely; reporting of and tolerance for mistakes; a maniacal vigilance against arrogance, elitism, and complacency; and the devaluation of status and hierarchy. — Edward D. Hess

When the doors begin to close, the mind begins to open. — Curtis Tyrone Jones

Gandhi has sound economic and cultural reasons for encouraging the revival of cottage industries, but he does not counsel a fanatical repudiation of all modern progress. Machinery, trains, automobiles, the telegraph have played important parts in his own colossal life! Fifty years of public service, in prison and out, wrestling daily with practical details and harsh realities in the political world, have only increased his balance, open-mindedness, sanity, and humorous appreciation of the quaint human spectacle. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Foretold through memories I remember what dangers I was warned of if lived by ways of sinning. That by living a fruitful life with an open mind to love all people would bring me to a place of peaceful tranquility. I wonder if these are all lies. All of them. — Nicholas A. McGirr

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

When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir? — John Maynard Keynes

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

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

Though the elite have been opened, and have opened themselves to the world, the world has not opened to all. Access is not the same as integration. But what is crucial is that no one is explicitly excluded. The effect is to blame non-elites for their lack of interest. As we have seen, the result of this logic is damning. The distinction between the elites and the rest of us appears to be a choice. It is cosmopolitanism that explains elite status to elites and closed-mindedness that explains those who choose not to participate. What matters are individual attributes and capacities, not durable inequalities. From this point of view, those who are not successful are not necessarily disadvantaged; they are simply those who have failed to seize the opportunities afforded by our new, open society. — Shamus Rahman Khan

A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. Mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness is not enough. Only adequate enlargement of consciousness by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare one to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence. — Paramahansa Yogananda

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

Open your mind to the world and the many different ways that can be found in it, before making hasty judgments of others. After all, the very same thing that you judge from where you are - may very well be something totally different in meaning on the other side of the world. The problem with making hasty judgments is that it will emphasize your ignorance at the end of the day. — C. JoyBell C.

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

Being generous often consists of simply extending a hand. That's hard to do if you are grasping tightly to your righteousness, your belief system, your superiority, your assumptions about others, your definition of normal. — Patti Digh

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

It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth. — Milan Kundera

As a writer, the main skill you need is curiosity. As a reader, the main tool you need is open-mindedness. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

Books and minds only work when they're open. — James Dewar

I love travel, it promotes open-mindedness, and I believe that the interactions you have as you go places and meet people all sharpen the mind. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

[When asked if he had ever learned anything about his work from film criticism]
No. To see a film once and write a review is an absurdity. Yet very few critics ever see a film twice or write about films from a leisurely, thoughtful perspective. The reviews that distinguish most critics, unfortunately, are those slambang pans which are easy to write and fun to write and absolutely useless. There's not much in a critic showing off how clever he is at writing silly, supercilious gags about something he hates. — Stanley Kubrick

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

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

Seeking social equality for disabilities doesn't come from bullying or militancy, seeking social equality for disabilities comes is from realising the open-mindedness and acknowledgement of each person's reality — Paul Isaacs

Why don't you just call yourself a lesbian? Random Guy wants to know. The answer seems so obvious. Because I'm not. But he presses further and that's when the answer really becomes clear. It's more than simply the attraction to guys which has always been there, and more than the attraction to women that I'm just beginning to explore. It's about potential, about possibility, about open-mindedness, and especially about making choices based on values and individuals rather than mere gender. — Audrey Beth Stein

The thing is, it's very dangerous to have a fixed idea. A person with a fixed idea will always find some way of convincing himself in the end that he is right — Atle Selberg

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

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

One of the biggest contradictions in self-proclaimed open-mindedness is to say that we're all one but when a true bigot comes around tell him we're all different. It's usually the case that neither side is correct. One might have the right to do something, anything, but sure enough, that doesn't mean it's right and a benefit to other people. — Criss Jami

Sex is as much about opening yourself and showing your sexuality to another human being as it is about allowing them to show you theirs. If you want your lover to expand their horizons with you, it's vital that you give them the same courtesy of hearing their secrets without making them feel creepy about it. — Roberto Hogue

Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess. — Margaret Mead

The misconception is that the genre is a breeding ground for negativity; that it is the birthplace of violence and misogynistic attitudes, and the genesis of every kind of unfavorable stereotype imaginable. When, in fact, if looked at through the lens of neutrality and open-mindedness, the virtues of hip hop far outweigh the negative stigma attached to it. — Carlos Wallace

Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don't mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open. — Stephen Russell

Even with my freewheeling open-mindedness, I couldn't fancy Dennis - a man whose ears looked like two long pieces of bacon. — Caitlin Moran

The most important quality for a judge is open- mindedness to the arguments. — Samuel Alito

People blame the 1960s for just about everything these days, but it was the decade when all that post-war furtiveness and small-mindedness was finally blown open, and opportunity really came knocking. — Pattie Boyd

Not that I've always agreed with what she said - far from it - but Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been properly lauded, in my view, as a judge who approached her duties with open-mindedness and with a sensitivity that affects her decisions would have on everyday, ordinary people. — Joe Biden

Open-mindedness is considered to be a virtue. But, strictly speaking, it cannot occur. A new experience must be redacted into old categories. We cannot handle each event freshly in its own right. If we did so, of what use would past experience be? — Gordon W. Allport

But having quills is a waste, even a double luxury when one can choose not to have quills but open hands. — Friedrich Nietzsche

What few rules appear to be in place are all made up. — Patti Digh

Where no paths exist, a man strays only when he misses his destination. There is no crime, no transgression, no sin save foolishness or incompetence, and no obscenity save the tyranny of custom. — R. Scott Bakker

Science and religion have in common the aim of seeking and achieving unity. Most scientists today are being led increasingly away from the fundamental aim of science to achieve unity into rather limited ways of thinking without much open-mindedness, doing things merely to meet limited material needs. — Maurice Wilkins

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

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

Culturally, though not theologically, I'm a Christian. I was born a Protestant of the white Anglo-Saxon persuasion. And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can't swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God. Strictly speaking, then, I cannot call myself a Christian. Most of the Christians I know accept my feelings on this with grace and open-mindedness. Then again, most of the Christians I know don't speak very strictly. To those who do speak (and think) strictly, all I can do here is offer my regrets for any hurt feelings and now excuse myself from their business. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one. — Brooks Atkinson

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

Stay diagnostic even as you take action. — Ronald A. Heifetz

Sit down before fact with an open mind. Be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads or you learn nothing. Don't push out figures when facts are going in the opposite direction. — Hyman G. Rickover

What advantage has the person who will not listen over the one who cannot hear? — Joyce Rachelle

It is never too late to give up your prejudices — Henry David Thoreau

An open mind is not an end in itself but a means to the end of finding truth. — Peter Kreeft

All I know for sure is that issues like race, like class, are always best approached with compassion and open-mindedness. — Ezra Koenig

When one opens a book, one should also open one's mind. — Adriano Bulla

Who thinks they're not open-minded? Our hypothetical prim miss from the suburbs thinks she's open-minded. Hasn't she been taught to be? Ask anyone, and they'll say the same thing: they're pretty open-minded, though they draw the line at things that are really wrong. (Some tribes may avoid "wrong" as judgemental, and may instead use a more neutral sounding euphemism like "negative" or "destructive".)

When people are bad at math, they know it, because they get the wrong answers on tests. But when people are bad at open-mindedness they don't know it. In fact they tend to think the opposite. — Paul Graham

True love doesn't spoil. — Toba Beta

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

If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition. — Brennan Manning

in describing the various writers of his idolatry he more than once lets fall a phrase that could equally apply to himself. 'To read Spenser,' he says, 'is to grow in mental health.' What he values in Addison is his 'open-mindedness.' The moments of despair chronicled in Scott's diary cannot, he claims, counterpoise 'that ease and good temper, that fine masculine cheerfulness' suffused through the best of the Waverly novels. Most of all it was the chiaroscuro of what Chaucer called 'earnest' and 'game' that attracted him. He found it eminently in the poetry of Dunbar, that late-medieval Scottish maker who wrote the greatest religious poetry and the earthiest satire in the language — Jocelyn Gibb

Don't be too stereotyped, be ready to explore new opportunities — Sunday Adelaja

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

There was only one Riley Cooper and McClane wanted him, with all his perfect imperfections, the insecurity and the stubborn pride, the poor conflict-solving skills and the laid-back open-mindedness that made the man such good company for an intelligent armor and weapons system with codependency issues. — J. Fally

1. A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your up? — Nyogen Senzaki

Say 'Not Yet.' It's best to leave your options open. — Michele Jaffe

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

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open. — Frank Zappa

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

Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in. — Alan Alda

Nine times out of ten a man's broad-mindedness is necessarily the narrowest thing about him. This is not particularly paradoxical; it is, when we come to think of it, quite inevitable. His vision of his own village may really be full of varieties; and even his vision of his own nation may have a rough resemblance to the reality. But his vision of the world is probably smaller than the world ... hence he is never so inadequate as when he is universal; he is never so limited as when he generalizes. This is the fallacy in the many modern attempts at a creedless creed, at something variously described as ... undenominational religion or a world faith to embrace all the faiths in the world ... When a philosophy embraces everything it generally squeezes everything, and squeezes it out of shape; when it digests it necessarily assimilates. — G.K. Chesterton

The greatest potential we have for opening our hearts lies in the opening of our minds. — Vironika Tugaleva

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

I'd always thought of myself as an open-minded person. I had no patience with anyone who put down other kids because of their race, religion, or sexuality. But that's just one kind of open-mindedness. There's another kind, too, the kind that's willing to see people for who they really are and admit when you were wrong about them. That's the part I still need to work on. — Kelley Armstrong

Having an open mind is the most important precondition for creating
new ideas. — Eraldo Banovac

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

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

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

Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself. — Timothy Leary

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

No one has the right to force his or her way of life on anyone else. — Frank Sonnenberg

I'm for open-mindedness and tolerance. I'm against any form of fanaticism, fundamentalism or zealotry, and this certainty of 'We have the truth.' The truth is far too large and complex. Nobody has the truth. — Philip Pullman

People should decide on the books' meanings for themselves. They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence. — Philip Pullman

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

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

Today, I deliberately practice open-mindedness. I cultivate a willingness to experience subtle realms. — Julia Cameron