Leonard Orr Quotes

Politics... have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Every non-political human grouping of whatever kind, legal, social, religious, economic or other becomes at last political if it creates an opposition deep enough to range men against one another as enemies.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about — you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer — and therefore, when differences are sufficiently far reaching, we try to kill the other man rather than let him have his way. But that is perfectly consistent with admitting that, so far as appears, his grounds are just as good as ours.

… the politically engaged will tend also to be the most closed-minded.

If you don't believe what other people believe, then they'll accuse you of being nihilistic.

It's simple-minded people like that, the ones that are afraid of change, they use everything in their power to defend what they stand up for instead of trying to listen and understand what's going on.

Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

The hardening of the attitudes is the most deadly disease on the face of the earth.

I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does they might as well be dead.

Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open - to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source. Self-confident people aren't afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.

Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed, and I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot out their excuses.

If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean, it does nowadays, because now we can't burn him.

The softminded person always wants to freeze the moment and hold life in the gripping yoke of sameness.

Three people marooned on a desert island would soon reinvent politics.

They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.

One thing must be avoided at all costs: narrow-mindedness, pedantry, dull pettiness.

An obstinate person does not hold opinions; they hold them.

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

It was the sibling thing, I suppose. I was fascinated by the intricate tangle of love and duty and resentment that tied them together. The glances they exchanged; the complicated balance of power established over decades; the games I would never play with rules I would never fully understand. And perhaps that was key: they were such a natural group that they made me feel remarkably singular by comparison. To watch them together was to know strongly, painfully, all that I'd been missing.

Narrow minds can develop as well through persecution as through benevolence; they can assure themselves of their power by tyrannizing cruelly or beneficially over others.

In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.

The people who bind themselves to systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch it by the tail; a system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.

Men and people will fight you down when you see the light. Let me tell you if you are not wrong than everything is all right.