Allen Tate Quotes

I became a sceptic of one way of seeing the world. And I think it is what started me in my awareness that any worldview is superstitious.

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

In order to properly understand the big picture, everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.

For me it's more important that I outline all the facets of a controversial issue and let the reader make up his or her mind. I don't care if readers change their minds, but I would like readers to ask themselves why their opinion is what it is.

We take things at face value, don't we? You form an opinion about something immediately, but you ought to step back a bit. Take in the vista first.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don't know exactly what's going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what's inside of them without being part of them.

Education, I fear, is learning to see one thing by going blind to another.

They don't have intelligence. They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences.

It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing.

We all learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the alternative. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.

The critic is a prisoner to his own experiences and perspectives, erroneously believing his limited experiences are the sum of all truth

Sometimes it happens that a man's circle of horizon becomes smaller and smaller, and as the radius approaches zero it concentrates on one point. And then that becomes his point of view.

The greatest obstacle to discovering the truth is being convinced that you already know it.

People see everything through the lens of their obsessions.

Less opinion, more perspective.

I don't go into a movie with preconceived notions of where I want things to go.

I think we got off the track, as many societies do, who follow successfully one aim, and yet are not capable of seeing at what point the pursuit of this aim prevents them from following a more total aim. That is to say, they get into a blind alley.

Go out looking for one thing, and that's all you'll ever find.

Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives that open up new possibilities. They show us how we might start in different places, and not buy into the assumptions tacitly made on the first pages of the philosophical works that have influenced us.

I always try to look at conflicts from as many different angles as is humanly possible, and in a lot of ways there is no one answer.

Again, if you only know what you know, you don't know if something's good or bad. You don't have perspective.

You don't want to know the Truth, you want to know the truth as you understand it. This is the greatest barrier to your enlightenment. You think you already know the truth! You think you already understand how it is. So you agree with everything you see or hear or read that falls into the paradigm of your understanding, and reject everything which does not.

How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?

Let’s never forget that whatever brilliant ideas you have or hear, that the opposite may also be true.