Peter O'Toole Quotes

Don't accuse anyone with the temerity to question your sad supernatural fantasies of having a 'closed mind' or being 'blind to possibilities'. A closed mind asks no questions, unthinkingly accepting that which it wants to believe. The blindness is all yours.

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

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

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

Incredulity is not wisdom.

Of all the weaknesses little men rail against, there is none that they are more apt to ridicule than the tendency to believe. And of all the signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble head, the tendency of incredulity is the surest. Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny.

An open mind but not an empty head.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything.

The "passion for incredulity" can produce as much self-deception as the uncritical will to believe.

He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.

Believing in everything looks a lot like believing in nothing.

'UFO's' attitude toward the subject is very similar to mine. It's not an advocacy; its philosophy is more 'I want to believe this, but I want it proved.'

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

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

Critics reach that age when it is as valuable and daring to hold a negative opinion as it is for a positive. We learn and understand from both.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Be quick to learn and wise to know.

Someone once told me to believe 5 percent of what everybody tells you.

Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the 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.