Closed-mindedness Quotes

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance

I have always regretted the dumb and offensive comments I made in my 20s on atheism and homosexuality.

The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

The question for the anointed is not knowledge but compassion, commitment, and other such subjective factors which supposedly differentiate themselves from other people. The refrain of the anointed is we already know the answers, there’s no need for more studies, and the kinds of questions raised by those with other views are just stalling and obstructing progress. “Solutions” are out there waiting to be found, like eggs at an Easter egg hunt. Intractable problems with painful trade-offs are simply not part of the vision of the anointed. Problems exists only because other people are not as wise or as caring, or not as imaginative and bold, as the anointed.

If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal. If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian. If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you’re a terrorist.

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

To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow- witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

No evidence against a firmly-held belief, no matter how good or abundant it may be, will sway the true believer.

Denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.

When people get their mind made up about something, then it's: 'Don't bother me with facts.' They've got their minds made up and dismiss you out of hand. Some people don't even give you a fair hearing.

The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.

Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!

My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?

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 habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

The losers in life think they have all the answers. They can’t learn because they’re too busy telling everyone what they know.

The biggest fool is the one who thinks he knows it all.

One of the main faults of a fool is that he never changes his mind.

Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.

One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.