Richard Dawkins Quotes

I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

What is important is that one utilizes one's intellect and not to be 100 percent sure about one's convictions. One should always leave room for doubt.

He that believes all misseth; he that believes nothing, hits not.

There are only two things one has to bear in mind. One has to be credulous - able to believe - and skeptical - able to not believe, because if you are not skeptical, you will believe rubbish. If you are not credulous you will learn nothing and the only way to balance those two is to recognize the mystery of things.

Believing in everything looks a lot like believing in nothing.

Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.

Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

Anyone who thinks they have a monopoly on truth, and there is only one way to see the world, always gets us into trouble.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

I always try to have an open mind, but there is a difference between having an open mind and having a hole in the head.

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.

Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.

Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.

My mother's openness has remained inspiring to me. I strive to be a skeptic, in the best sense of that word: I question everything, and yet I'm open to everything. And I don't have immovable beliefs. My values shift and grow with my experiences - and as my context changes, so does what I believe.

I respect and believe skeptics.

I mean, I think it's a two-way relationship: I think you should not have too much faith in your own rationality. You should not have too much faith in the rationality of, you know, anybody else either. We all learn together about the way the world is, and I think it's a sort of antidote to wishful thinking of all kinds.

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

You mustn’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

One of the hardest tasks as a human being is knowing when to keep an open mind, and when not to.

Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.

The thing I believe in most in the world is my own fallibility, so I am willing to believe that I may be wrong too.

Believe only half of the praise and half of the criticism.