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If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
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Source type: Website
Abraham Lincoln
Contribution #3817
No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?
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No source entered for Contribution #3798
It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, aquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and selfinterest are the traits of sucess. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.
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No source entered for Contribution #3784
Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.
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Source type: Book
High Tide in Tucson
http://
Contribution #3736
I like not to know for as long as possible because then it tells me the truth instead of me imposing the truth.
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No source entered for Contribution #3684
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
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Source type: Book
The Little Prince
Page chapter 21, page 87
Published by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
, 1943
http://
Contribution #3662
Commandment Number One for any truly civilized society is this: Let people be different.
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No source entered for Contribution #3653
We must all beware the very real and understandable human tendency to ignore or subvert facts, and findings of science, that discomfort us for reasons of ideology, politics, religion, or personal taste.
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No source entered for Contribution #3652
A man's library is a sort of harem.
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No source entered for Contribution #3634
If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
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("The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 1953, p. 20)
Contribution #3599
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
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No source entered for Contribution #3598
New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth.
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No source entered for Contribution #3595
I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.
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No source entered for Contribution #3583
Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible -- the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.
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No source entered for Contribution #3544
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
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No source entered for Contribution #3543
People change and forget to tell each other.
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No source entered for Contribution #3540
Generally speaking, the first nonviolent act is not fasting, but dialogue. The other side, the adversary, is recognized as a person, he is taken out of his anonymity and exists in his own right, for what he really is, a person. To engage someone in dialogue is to recognize him, have faith in him. At every step in the nonviolent struggle, at every level we try tirelessly to establish a dialogue, or reestablish it if it has broken down. When I say 'the other side,' that could be a group of persons or a government.
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No source entered for Contribution #3538
Preserving the right to uncensored expression is important not only because it is indispensable for an objective examination of truth claims—it is no accident that dictatorships uniformly suppress speech—but also because it has intrinsic value. Human dignity requires the freedom to express oneself as an individual.
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No source entered for Contribution #3519
There is no promise of love and light or visions of any kind -- no angels, no devils. Nothing happens: it is absolutely boring. Sometimes you feel silly. One often asks the question, "Who is kidding whom? Am I on to something or not?" You are not on to something. Traveling the path means you get off everything, there is no place to perch. Sit and feel your breath, be with it.
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Source type: Book
The Myth of Freedom
Page p. 53
Published by Shambhala
, Boston & London
, 1988
http://
Contribution #3510
There will be something, anguish or elation, that is peculiar to this day alone. I rise from sleep and say: Hail to the morning! Come down to me, my beautiful unknown.
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No source entered for Contribution #3506
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
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No source entered for Contribution #3504
If a book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides if we choose.
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No source entered for Contribution #3503
We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old -- reformers in the morning, conservatives at night. Reform is affirmative, conservatism is negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth.
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No source entered for Contribution #3484
Of course you will insist on modesty in the children, and respect to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug him!
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No source entered for Contribution #3479
Emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.
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Source type: Book
Sky Flowers
http://
Contribution #3462
The more we learn, the more we question; institutions and beliefs, once immutable, become like a river, fluid, moving, changing.
A good listener helps us overhear ourselves.
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No source entered for Contribution #3369
“I'm with you in suggesting that we integrate our spirituality through symbols, myths, dreams and stories, instead of fixed certainties. For me the problem with fixed certainties is that they become so fixed they're no longer certain (if not certainly wrong). I also believe that spirituality is full of mystery and paradox, which gives me an opportunity to engage in play.”
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George Polley
http://none
Contribution #3362
The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.
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No source entered for Contribution #3348
The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.
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Source type: Sacred Text
Bible
Proverbs
18:17
Published by New Revised Standard Version
http://
Contribution #3238
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.
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Source type: Book
Page 297
http://
Contribution #3233
Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.
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Google
Contribution #3224
The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
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No source entered for Contribution #3219
We have an innate tendency to characterize the unexpected and unlikely according to our worldview.
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Source type: Book
On Being Certain
Page 186
Published by St. Martin's Press
, New York
, 2008
http://
Contribution #3179
Albert is a very poor student. He is mentally slow, unsociable and is always daydreaming. He is spoiling it for the rest of the class. It would be in the best interests of all if he were removed from school immediately.
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Contribution #3133
There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.
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No source entered for Contribution #3114
If you can't change your mind, are you sure you still have one?
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No source entered for Contribution #3113
Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction.
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No source entered for Contribution #3111
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
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No source entered for Contribution #3097
It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations--something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.
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No source entered for Contribution #3092
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
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No source entered for Contribution #3014
No his mind is not for rent,
to any god or government.
Always hopeful yet discontent,
he knows changes aren't permanent.
But change is.
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No source entered for Contribution #2993
Avoid internalizing society’s sexism, racism, ageism — pick an ism, any ism.
[W]e all need friends with whom we can speak of our deepest concerns, and who do not fear to speak the truth in love to us.
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No source entered for Contribution #2939
We cannot sow seeds with clenched fists. To sow we must open our hands.
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No source entered for Contribution #2831
To the scientists of the Renaissance, your critic was really your ally, helping you advance upon reality. Critics in science are not like drama critics, determining flops and successes. Criticism to scientists is just another means of finding out whether they're wrong, like running another experiment to see if it confirms or refutes a theory. Along with the advocacy principle of the courtroom, it is one of the best ways human beings have evolved to get closer to the truth.
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Source type: Book
Learned Optimism
Page 42
Published by Pocket Books
, New York
, 1990, 1998
http://
Contribution #2812
Let thoughts in and out without pouring concrete on them.
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No source entered for Contribution #2804
Differences challenge assumptions.
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No source entered for Contribution #2766
Science lets questions determine the answers; Ideology lets answers determine the questions.
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No source entered for Contribution #2723
Science means following the questions where they lead, even if you don’t like what the results are telling you.
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No source entered for Contribution #2722
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
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No source entered for Contribution #2641
You can learn a lot more from listening than you can from talking. Find someone with whom you don’t agree in the slightest and ask them to explain themselves at length. Then take a seat, shut your mouth, and don’t argue back. It’s physically impossible to listen with your mouth open.
We live comfortably in the patches of reality where theory is tolerably successful, where reason is functional and predictability predominates. But any day an unexpected event may expel us from this Eden into the larger world of the incomprehensible.
It is then that our attitude will sustain or sink us. If we can revel in the mystery, keeping faith in our sights, then we will thrive and grow stronger.
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Source type: Website
Josh Mitteldorf
"
Daily Inspiration 5 October 2008"
http://daily-inspiration.org/
Viewed on November 3, 2008
Contribution #2510
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
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No source entered for Contribution #2507
He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.
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No source entered for Contribution #2504
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
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No source entered for Contribution #2502
I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.
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No source entered for Contribution #2498
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.
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No source entered for Contribution #2497
Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
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No source entered for Contribution #2496
You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in.
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No source entered for Contribution #2484
The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.
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No source entered for Contribution #2483
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.
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No source entered for Contribution #2480
In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
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No source entered for Contribution #2476
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
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No source entered for Contribution #2471
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
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No source entered for Contribution #2448
I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality--that is all. You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I will bid it a polite "good day." If I do like it, I will say: "Sit down; stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world."
The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ--our thoughts are different. Therefore the commerse that we call conversation.
Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bulling the enlightened Present.
The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought.
To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit.
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Source type: Book
A Path with Heart
http://
Contribution #2215
And when we would make much of that which cannot matter much to thee, forgive us. --a frequent part of the prayer that opened sermons.
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.
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No source entered for Contribution #2112
A man who sees the world the same at fifty as he did at thirty, has wasted twenty years of his life.
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No source entered for Contribution #2102
The intelligent and good man holds in his affections the good and true of every land--the boundaries of countries are not the limitations of his sympathies. Caring nothing for race, or color, he loves those who speak other languages and worship other gods. Between him and those who suffer, there is no impassable gulf. He salutes the world, and extends the hand of friendship to the human race. He does not bow before a provincial and patriotic god--one who protects his tribe or nation, and abhores the rest of mankind.
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Source type: Book
What's God Got to Do with It?
by Editor: Tim Page
Page 27
Published by Steerforth Press
, Hanover, New Hampshire
, 2005
http://
Contribution #2072
In the carriages of the past, you can't go anywhere.
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No source entered for Contribution #2036
Who is wise? One who learns from all.
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Source type: Sacred Text
Talmud
http://
Contribution #2030
The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.
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No source entered for Contribution #2023
Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.
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No source entered for Contribution #2009
Everything flows and nothing remains the same. You cannot step in the same river twice.
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No source entered for Contribution #1995
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
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No source entered for Contribution #1948
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
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No source entered for Contribution #1945
It takes two to speak the truth--one to speak, and another to hear.
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No source entered for Contribution #1931
Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge. You have to be able to transcend your knowledge the way people climb a ladder.
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No source entered for Contribution #1863
The fundamental difference between the liberal and the illiberal outlook is that the former regards all questions as open to discussion and all opinions as open to a greater or lesser measure of doubt, while the latter holds in advance that certain opinions are absolutely unquestionable, and that no argument against them must be allowed be heard.
What is curious about this position is the belief that if impartial investigation were permitted it would lead men to the wrong conclusion, and that ignorance is, therfore, the only safeguard against terror. This point of view cannot be accepted by any man who wishes reason rather than prejudice to govern human action.
I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
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No source entered for Contribution #1720
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken - unspeakable! - fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse - a little tiny mouse! - of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.
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No source entered for Contribution #1719
Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race.
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.
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Source type: Book
Essays on Education
http://
Contribution #1717
Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
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No source entered for Contribution #1643
Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge. You have to be able to transcend your knowledge the way people climb a ladder. If you are on the fifth step of a ladder and think that you are very high, there is no hope for you to climb to the sixth.
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Source type: Book
Being Peace
by Arnold Kotler
Page 58
Published by Parallax Press
, Berkeley, CA, USA
, 1996
http://
Contribution #1617
If you stop and confine yourself to one place, you will develop prejudices.
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Source type: Book
The Little Book of Chinese Proverbs
by Jonathan Clements
Page 183
Published by Barnes & Noble Books
, New York
, 2003
http://
Contribution #1607
Shade and light are different in every valley.
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Source type: Book
The Little Book of Chinese Proverbs
by Jonathan Clements
Page 165
Published by Barnes & Noble Books
, New York
, 2003
http://
Contribution #1602
Hear all sides and you will be enlightened. Hear one side and you will be in the dark.
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Source type: Book
The Little Book of Chinese Proverbs
by Jonathan Clements
Page 153
Published by Barnes & Noble Books
, New York
, 2003
http://
Contribution #1599
Do not worry if others do not understand you. Worry if you do not understand them.
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No source entered for Contribution #1590
Find enlightenment through heeding many points of view. Find ignorance through heeding few.
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No source entered for Contribution #1587
If the future is to remain open and free,
we need people who can tolerate the unknown,
who will not need the support of completeley
worked-out systems or traditional blueprints from the past.
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No source entered for Contribution #1533
It's a mistake to surround yourself
only with people just like you.
Throw off that worn comforter --
and replace it with a crazy quilt of
different and imaginative people.
Then watch the ideas erupt!
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No source entered for Contribution #1530
Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.
Your mind has enormous hidden dimensions. Open yourselves completely to whatever reactions and emotions the world evokes from time to time. Accept them all without any reservation or resentment. By assimilating everything and all, your mind grows deeper, stabler and more enriched.
Receptivity and sensitiveness are what makes one’s behaviour endearing and enriching. Do not try to thrust your likes and dislikes on others. Try instead, to find out what those around would expect from you and where you can possibly contribute. Rather than feeling conflict or confrontation every time, look for and generate greater notes of harmony.
Creativity can never be explained by appeal to reason alone. Like the birth of a child, creativity compels us not to explanation but to wonder and awe.
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No source entered for Contribution #1035
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.
Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.
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Source type: Website
Germaine Greer
Viewed on April 10, 2008
Contribution #460
What does openness look like in a person?
(0 responses)
