Openness Quotes

“The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.”
― Niels Bohr

“Sometimes...I’d lie awake in the dark, right before dawn, and wonder if I’d ever be glad to see morning again. If I’d ever really come out on the other side.”
― Justine Davis, The Morning Side of Dawn

“Today, we are not just inmates or victims in a foreign-controlled digital panoptic. Originally, the Panoptikum was a prison-like building designed by Jeremy Bentham. The prisoners in the outer ring are guarded by a central surveillance tower. In the digital panoptic, we are not just caught. We are ourselves perpetrators. We are actively involved in the digital panopticon. We even entertain it by cableing ourselves to the body like the millions of quantified self-movements and voluntarily putting our body-related data into the web. The new rule does not silence us. Rather, she is constantly calling on us to communicate, to share, to communicate our opinions, needs, wishes and preferences, to tell our lives.”
― Byung-Chul Han, Google Translate

“The only path wide enough for us all is love.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“Keep an open mind. The right person coming to you at the right time will change everything you ever thought was true.”
― Kate McGahan, One Heart's Journey: Lyrics of an Imperfect Life

“It is so important for us as empaths to maintain a sense of connectedness with life. When we put up walls to protect ourselves, we end up exhausting, victimizing, and alienating ourselves. It is far more satisfying, effective, and healthy to work with our gifts, rather than against them.”
― Aletheia Luna, Awakened Empath: The Ultimate Guide to Emotional, Psychological and Spiritual Healing

“Cold feet under a warm blanket, steam over an empty mug--rain splatters on dry window pane--open journals of closed memories... tears of laughter and joy of pain... schmaltz of diametric morning.”
― Val Uchendu

“An encounter with other cultures can lead to openness only if you can suspend the assumption of superiority, not seeing new worlds to conquer, but new worlds to respect.”
― Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life

“Real winners in a rapidly changing world will be those who are open to alternatives and able to respect and value those who are different.”
― Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life

“A little difficult to know where you were with Elinor. She didn't reveal much of what she thought and felt about things. He liked that about her. He hated people who reeled off their thoughts and feelings to you, who took it for granted that you wanted to know all their mechanism. Reserve was always more interesting.”
― Agatha Christie, Sad Cypress

“Let your heart be as big as it can possibly be.”
― Swami Chetanananda

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
― Tao Te Ching

“We can honestly say that everyone we've known who has used effective communication has been grateful for it in the long run. Often, effective communication brings about huge relief by showing you just how strongly your partner feels about you -- and by strengthening the bond between you two. And even though in some instances the response may not be what you hoped for and you'll be convinced that you've ruined everything -- if only you had said or done something else, he would surely have come around -- we've never heard anyone say in retrospect that they regretted raising an important issue in a dating or relationship setting. In fact, they overwhelmingly express gratitude that effective communication got them that one step closer to their long-term goal of either finding the right person or strengthening their existing bond.”
― Amir Levine & Rachel S.F. Heller, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“When Geoffrey’s not anxious, he radiates calmness, which probably means he sees more things and finds more things than other people do. It makes him open to new things too.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

“Make us, Lord, in Chesterton's distinction, travelers instead of tourists. Where the tourist defines his day by the expectation of seeing certain things, give us the traveler's openness to seeing what You will reveal.”
― Brian Eshleman

“I would suggest that the desire to love is always greater than the passion to hate. It’s simply that love demands vulnerability and hate does not. Therefore, too often we tend to love the easier choice to hate.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“It is praiseworth to be open and honest, but you must be very discriminating on where and with whom you apply that most sacred virtue.”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“It's amazing how willingly one can tell to a new face, and how restrained one may be from telling a familiar one.”
― Lauren Lola, An Absolute Mind

“Carried to its final extreme, the logical end of this type of reaction to life is suicide. The hard-bitten kind of person is always, as it were, a partial suicide; some of himself is already dead”
― Alan Watts

“The more open we are, the more we can learn. The more we learn, the more we recognize that every one of us is a hero”
― Kim Ha Campbell, Inner Peace Outer Abundance

“Meditation is a practice that fosters mental stamina, perseverance, and the ability to openly receive.”
― Amy Leigh Mercree, A Little Bit of Meditation: An Introduction to Focus

“I’m not alone now either. The world is all around me. People leave, but there are always more coming. The catch is that you have to open the door to let them in.”
― Kathy McCullough, Who Needs Magic?

“I did not draw a conscious parallel to my own sexuality, much less my father's. But the immersion -- like green dishwashing liquid bathing a cuticle -- left me supple and open to possibility.”
― Alison Bechdel

“Политика нуждается в стимулах извне — от людей, которые, как и сам Бубер, не имеют собственных политических интересов, но чрезвычайно озабочены политическим развитием и политическими решениями. Неудивительно, что Бу­бер при этом делает ставку на диалог: «У войны есть противник, который почти никогда не выступает в роли такового, но тихо делает свое дело. Это язык, язык настоящего диалога, который помогает людям понять друг друга и договориться между собой» [...]. Но что должно произойти, чтобы этот диалог начался? Какого­-то конкретного метода Бубер не предлагает — уже потому, что «настоящий диалог» развивается в свободной динамике, когда участники попеременно слушают и говорят, поэтому методично спланировать его действительно невозможно. Бубер делает ставку на людей, которые независимо от принадлежнос­ти к какому­-то лагерю и независимо от политики формулируют потребность в диалоге, в обмене мнениями и таким образом открывают «третий путь» [...], «откровенно разговаривая друг с другом, не закрывая глаза на то, что их разделяет, а решительно настраиваясь на совместное несение этого груза» [...]. Такой зарождающийся и расширяющийся диалог может затем распространять свое влияние и на политику [34—35].”
― Hans-Joachim Werner, Культура примирення: Нова історична свідомість в Україні

“Opening up to your intuition represents a commitment to pay closer attention to how you think and feel.”
― Laurie Nadel, Sixth Sense: Unlocking Your Ultimate Mind Power

“Share yourself often, easily, authentically and generously from wherever you are in the moment.”
― Amy McTear, We Need You: A Call to an Imaginal Reality

“We can learn to become open to all the varied and, sometimes, unexpected ways in which love will bless us and use us.”
― Donna Goddard, The Love of Devotion

“Openness is like a sport, we need to practice it every day to get the best ability to be open to others’ ideas after some time.”
― A.A. Alebraheem, When Life Makes Sense: Exploring the meaning of life through science, philosophy and faith

“To be vulnerable is to heal yourself ... just as much as it is to heal others.”
― Brittany Burgunder

“A person should never foreclose oneself from experiencing opportunities to learn. American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) advised, ‘The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.’ A euphoric experience – the rapturous joys of life – is available to a sincere person whom perceives truth, statements that fit properly into a system taken as a whole (coherence).”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls