Evan Bayh Quotes

I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.

You know, interesting minds usually do hold more than one idea at a time.

I'll shout it if they want: Down with isms! Up with a Left that is capable of thinking outside the box! In other words, I am more than completely cured of simplifications, of dividing the world into good and evil, of thinking in black and white. I have repented!

Well, the fact is that one imagination is critically important, and if you have had your imagination stimulated by what is basically a variety of subjects, you are much more amenable to accepting, to understanding and interacting with the realities of the world.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

I think intelligence basically can be in a way defined by the possibility of having two opposite ideas living together and at the same time functioning. That's why I think a smart script has two things living in the same place, and they're absolutely contradictory.

An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.

Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

I'm a huge believer in learning anything from multiple points of view.

We must dare to think “unthinkable” thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about ‘unthinkable’ things because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

I often advocate that we look at many sides of an issue, walk in someone else's shoes, and identify and reject false choices.

Are you going to get offended when someone says something that is counter to your worldview? I think you need to be willing to change your worldview or, at least, be open to other people's ideas.

Whoever has once been truly unsettled by a work of the imagination will never give loyalty to a single idea, belief system, religious faith or party.

Whereas any political party, and nearly all voters, prize consistency as a sign of authentic, values-driven thinking, it is deeply alien to the hacker, who holds that changing your mind is simply intelligence in action.

We're too smart to know there aren't easy answers. But we're not dumb enough to accept that there aren't better answers.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

I love discourse. I'm dying to have my mind changed. I'm probably the only liberal who read Treason, by Ann Coulter. I want to know, you understand? I like listening to everybody. This to me is the elixir of life.

The intellectual ... may live for ideas, as I have said, but something must prevent him from living for one idea, from becoming obsessive or grotesque. Although there have been zealots whom we may still regard as intellectuals, zealotry is a defect of the breed and not of the essence.

It’d be a poor kind of world where there was just one explanation for things. ---Rhiow

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty.

Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.

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

If I limit myself to knowledge that I consider true beyond doubt, I minimize the risk of error but I maximize, at the same time, the risk of missing out on what may be the subtlest, most important and most rewarding things in life.

We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt.

I heard that a lot and I just sort of thought, the world was an even more interesting place than the people who were making the decisions were perhaps interpreting it to be.