Agatha Christie Quotes

I think like a detective.

I like to think that I have no single view nor any single situation that I think things arrive from. I try to give examples of what I think are interesting questions for me.

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.

No nation like the United States of America can continue to grow and be a strong nation if we are going to judge people because they disagree with our agenda rather than the content of their statements. We have to be critical thinkers. We have to be analytical. We should understand facts from emotion.

Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.

It is well for people who think, to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean.

The people who are right a lot often change their minds.

A detective with his murder mystery, a chemist seeking the structure of a new compound, use little of the formal and logical modes of reasoning. Through a series of intuitions, surmises, fancies, they stumble upon the right explanation, and have a knack of seizing it when it once comes within reach.

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've learned to keep my mind open to ideas from any source.

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.

I don't think all of my ideas are good. It's almost easier when people are critical of you because it helps with the quality control.

All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do.

Rational thinking is an important aspect of human nature, but we have imagination, we have ambition, we have irrational fear, we are swayed by other people, we get indoctrinated and we get influenced by advertising.

Which path do you intend to take, Nell?' said the Constable, sounding very interested. 'Conformity or rebellion?' Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded - they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.

People who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds.

The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held; instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

People should decide on the books' meanings for themselves. They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence.

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.

If the future is to remain open and free, we need people who can tolerate the unknown, who will not need the support of completely worked out systems or traditional blueprints from the past.

When people disagreed with him he urged them to be objective.

There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.

Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow is too lazy to form an opinion.

The Goal of Education is to Help People Use Their Minds Better