Theodor Herzl Quotes

A man who doesn't think differently from his time and environment can't grow beyond his time and environment.

There's a fine line between what would characterize you as a troglodyte and what would characterize you as a brilliant, avant-garde, forward-thinking genius. There's some middle ground.

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.

Beware of the person of one book.

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.

It is futile to ask a person who is narrow minded or close minded, to give his judgment for he is not willing to accommodate suggestions and opinions from others and hence, his wisdom remains restricted and is not allowed to evolve, and so he is not able to use his wisdom efficiently.

A liberal is a person who kept an open mind … a person who did not always look backward but would look forward to new possible solutions.

Americans do not want to think that there is an alternative to what we have. Therefore, as soon as you say 'fascism' or whatever it might be, then the American response is to say 'no' because we lack the categories that allow us to think outside of the box that we are no longer in.

We would be the worst of fools if we would ever lose this extraordinary capacity to go beyond the limits of past thought and past prejudices.

The one experience that I hope every student has at some point in their lives is to have some belief you profoundly, deeply hold, proved to be wrong because that is the most eye-opening experience you can have, and as a scientist, to me, is the most exciting experience I can ever have.

Sometimes, we are so attached to our way of life that we turn down wonderful opportunities simply because don't know what to do with it.

A university shouldn't be a place of comfort. It should be a place of discomfort because you want to disabuse these kids of whatever prejudices or preconceptions they have when they come. You're trying to get them to think and develop, not be a Johnny-one-note.

If I were required to guess off-hand, and without collusion with higher minds, what is the bottom cause of the amazing material and intellectual advancement of the last fifty years, I should guess that it was the modern-born and previously non-existent disposition on the part of men to believe that a new idea can have value.

Books are certainly old fashioned, but only people with a very limited perception are silly enough to condemn ideas because of their age. It is, of course, equally silly to condemn the new fangled simply because it is strange.

Everyone has to learn to think differently, bigger, to open to possibilities.

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.

The only phrase I've ever disliked is, 'Why, we've always done it that way.' I always tell young people, 'Go ahead and do it. You can always apologize later.'

When any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

There is no greater hindrance to the progress of thought than an attitude of irritated party-spirit.

Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry.

It seems to me that the great pleasure of human life is not in having an opinion, but rather in learning all the ways you are wrong, and all the nuances you failed to account for, and all the truths that turned out to be not as simple as you once believed. And it seems to me that one of the central pleasures of attending school is that you get to read with really well-informed people who can help welcome you into a complex world stuffed with rich and maddening ambiguity.

In a narrow circle the mind grows narrow. The more one expands, the larger their aims.

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!

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

Read things you're sure will disagree with your current thinking. If you're a die-hard anti-animal person, read Meat. If you're a die-hard global warming advocate, read Glenn Beck. If you're a Rush Limbaugh fan, read James W. Loewen's Lies My Teachers Told Me. It'll do your mind good and get your heart rate up.