Hyman Rickover Quotes

I think it's very important to keep in the back of your mind: 'What if I'm wrong?'

I never stop making sure that what I say is the best of what could be said about a particular thing. It's a constant evolution. If I planted a tree one way yesterday, and somebody tells me of a better way to plant a tree, I think, 'You know, they're right, that's better.' Then I change my way to accommodate the new way of planting trees.

I always entertain the notion that I'm wrong, or that I'll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

I'm not one of these people who thinks I know all the answers.

I try not to be an ideologue about anything. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'm willing to evolve.

I prefer to listen to people who change their mind now and then.

One special advantage of the skeptical attitude of mind is that a man is never vexed to find that after all he has been in the wrong.

No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.

People who are right most of the time are people who change their minds often

I change my opinions often, but not my way of thinking.

Continually challenge and be willing to amend your best loved ideas.

And I like asking questions, to keep learning; people with big egos might not want to look unsure.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.

Consistency is the most overrated of all human virtues... I'm someone who changes his mind all the time.

I'm not going to tell a person how to think, don't believe in that. What I want to do, when I write these books, is just to say don't be so sure of yourself. Let me pull the carpet out from underneath you, and let's see if you can still find the footing.

Look at the evidence and to be willing to question your own truths, and to be willing to scrutinize things that you hold dearly because that way, that transparency, that self-awareness, will protect you from ever becoming somebody that whose beliefs somehow make them have myopic vision about what could be.

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

It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

He that never changes his opinion never corrects mistakes and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.

You never agree with any one candidate 100 percent. I don't agree with myself 100 percent.

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.

Good-faith re-examination of a position you've held in the past should be seen as a virtue, not a vice.