Gregory Bateson Quotes

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you'll be.

If you already think you are correct and there's nothing else you can learn in life, then I think you are in trouble.

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's really there.

Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot.

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!

The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn-the less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything.

If you cannot be open-minded, then you do not possess your ideas, your ideas possess you.

Belief gets in the way of learning.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.

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.

The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.

I think the problem with people like this is that they are so stupid that they have no idea how stupid they are.

Any belief that puts itself beyond doubt nurtures its own collapse.

We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt.

Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.

When ignorance does not know something, it says that what it does not know is stupid.

Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others.

Men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So ... these despisers of their fellows ... make experiments only to destroy a theory, instead of to seek the truth.

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.

We learn nothing by being right.

Many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already.

If men were stubborn just in proportion as they were right, stubbornness would take her seat among the virtues; but men are generally stubborn just in proportion as they are ignorant and wrong.