54 Openness Quotes

I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

I believe it is possible that I shall make other creeds, and change this one, or add to it, from time to time, as new light may come to me.

We shall always keep a spare corner in our heads to give passing hospitality to our friends' opinion.

The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.

Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.

Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

You need a mind open to possibility, conditioned to love the creative spirit we all have inside ourselves.

You cannot force the Now. - But can you neither condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on? You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open.

Eutrapelia. 'A happy and gracious flexibility,' Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance- the idea that anything is possible.

'The capacity for fear and for happiness are the same, the unrestricted openness to experience amounting to self-abandonment in which the vanquished rediscovers himself.'

Emptiness the starting point. - In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. My friend, drop all you preconceived and fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is useful? Because it is empty.

Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite - there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void, because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all being.

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas : If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you : On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.

At the heart of science is an essential tension 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.

My position is that America is great precisely because it is an open society, and an open society recognizes that nobody is the ultimate arbiter - and that we may be wrong at times, even if we are powerful. We must be open to criticism and respect divergent and different views and interests.

I do not want my house to be walled in on sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.

For the current of our spiritual life, creeds and rituals are channels that may thwart or help, according to their fixity or openness. When a symbol or spiritual idea becomes rigidly elaborate in its construction, it supplants the idea which it should support.

(August 2004): I'm try-sexual. I try anything that's sexual.

We let the weirdness in.

Liberate yourself from concepts and see the truth with your own eyes. - It exists HERE and NOW; it requires only one thing to see it: openness, freedom - the freedom to be open and not tethered by any ideas, concepts, etc. ... When our mind is tranquil, there will be an occasional pause to its feverish activities, there will be a let-go, and it is only then in the interval between two thoughts that a flash of UNDERSTANDING - understanding, which is not thought - can take place.

Of course, there are hard rock fans who only like hard rock and that's OK, but I think the majority of the people out there are rather open minded. I always liked a lot of different styles and hard rock was just one of them.

The story of Soundgarden is my own story in a way, so why should I be afraid to talk about it? There's always a question that leads back to Soundgarden and I'm proud that I was part of the band, so why should I mind talking about it? After all, it was a great time for the most part of it.

I always had an understanding and a connection and a good relationship with gay men and women. And I don't want to censor myself about the [censored] subject because I don't have a problem with gay or straight or any of that.'

3) Stories to end all stories on a given topic, don't.

It is wrong to accept certainties.

I consider myself bisexual, and my philosophy is, everyone innately is, although I've never had a full-on relationship with a woman, just a couple of what I'd term half-assed dalliances. So I haven't explored it to the degree that I'd like to, but I'll tell you, I'm open to it. And I don't have any problem saying that.

I'm easy, I'm open - that's my gift. I can flow with the traffic, I can drift with the drift.

Sharon was the type of a girl who had no defenses, no pretenses, she was just herself all the time... She was so trusting, so eager to accept people as they were, so generous... Sharon never shut her door to anyone.

I respect Kirkpatrick both for his sponges and for his numinous nummulosphere. It is easy to dismiss a crazy theory with laughter that debars any attempt to understand a man's motivation-and the nummulosphere is a crazy theory. I find that few men of imagination are not worth my attention. Their ideas may be wrong, even foolish, but their methods often repay a close study. [:] The different drummer often beats a fruitful tempo.

The corporate scandals of the last two years have shown us that we need to bring a new standard of openness to government and to business. I believe Wes Clark will play it straight with the American people. The Bush administration has put the fox in charge of the hen house time and again, placing former industry advocates in charge of the very government organizations that should be policing them. We have seen the results of such cronyism: the average working American loses, the average retiree loses, the environment loses, the average investor loses. We need a leader who will stand up for our interests and not the special interests. I think Wes Clark is that leader.

Do not close the circle. Leave it open. Descartes closes the circle. Pascal leaves it open. Rousseau's triumph over the encyclopedists is to have left his circle open when they closed theirs.

Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism.

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come into contact with a new idea.

Something inspires the only cow of late To make no more of a wall than an open gate, And think no more of wall-builders than fools.

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.' That is all.

...when you're in love, all of your doors are open, and all of their doors are open. And you roller-skate down your halls together.