Bryant H. McGill Quotes

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess commitment to some special or constricting idea.

Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.

Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing.

How prone we are to come to the consideration of every question with heads and hearts pre-occupied! How prone to shrink from any opinion, however reasonable, if it be opposed to any, however unreasonable, of our own! How disposed are we to judge, in anger, those who call upon us to think, and encourage us to enquire! To question our prejudices seems nothing less than sacrilege; to break the chains of our ignorance, nothing short of impiety!

My point is that perceptual bias can affect nut jobs and scientists alike. If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind.

Dogmatists have one advantage: they are poor listeners.

A high openness score means you're open-minded - you see the world for what it is - whereas a low openness score means you're incredibly closed-minded, and you see the world the way you want to see it, regardless of what is actually going on.

There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind.

The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily believe beyond what we see.

There is nothing more dangerous than a person with only one right answer.

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

Belief gets in the way of learning.

Firmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out twice.

Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route.

If you never change your mind, why have one?

I think if someone is writing continuously for 10 years and has not changed their mind about something - there's something wrong with them. They're not really thinking.

Our opinions become fixed at the point where we stop thinking.

Belief gets in the way of learning.

If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind.

Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. … the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller

When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered

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

A mind should not be so open that the brains fall out; however, it should not be so closed that whatever gray matter which does reside may not be reached.

In order to keep an open mind, I am trying to avoid learning anything.