Words of Classical Thinkers
on Openmindedness

"To Weigh and Consider"

By Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

"Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use, for they teach not their own....  Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested;  that is, some books are to be read only in parts;  others to be read, but not curiously;  and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.  Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others, but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things.

"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.  And therefore if a man write little, he need have a great memory;  if he confer little, he need have a present wit;  and if he read little, he need have much cunning, to seem to know what he doth not."

"Intellectual Honesty"

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1920)

"I divide men into two lots.  They are freethinkers, or they are not freethinkers.  I am not speaking of the agnostic English Freethinkers, but I am using the word in its simplest meaning.  Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.  This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking;  where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.

"A man may be a Catholic, a Frenchman, or a capitalist, and yet be a freethinker;  but if he put his Catholicism, his patriotism, or his interest above his reason and will not give the latter free play where those subjects are touched, he is not a freethinker.  His mind is in bondage."