“Minds are like parachutes: they only function when open.”
Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar (1864–1930) Scottish Distiller and Conservative Party politician
Quoted in Giovanni Graziadei, Gestione della produzione industriale, Hoepli, Milano, 2004, p. 65 http://books.google.it/books?id=xomdPzmzKAcC&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false. ISBN 88-203-3395-3. May be a bit questionable http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/minds_are_like_parachutes_they_only_function_when_open/.
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist
Original quote:
For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
The Extraordinary Cabman, one of many essays collected in Tremendous Trifles (1909)
Misattributed
“Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist
As quoted in Margaret Mead, World's Grandmother (1975) by Ann Morse, Charles Morse, Harold Henriksen, p. 9
1970s
“The mind is like an umbrella - it functions best when open.”
Walter Gropius (1883–1969) German architect (1883-1969) and founder of the Bauhaus School
As quoted in The Art of Looking Sideways by w:Alan Fletcher, p. 129
“Like all neo-puritans you have a mind like an open drain.”
John Brunner book The Jagged Orbit
Source: The Jagged Orbit (1969), Chapter 44, “A Firm Decision to Go Into the Wagon-Fixing Business in a Big Way” (p. 132)
“If we keep an open mind, too much is likely to fall into it.”
Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972) writer and salonist
In "Samples from Almost Illegible Notebooks", ADAM International Review, No. 299 (1962)
“I like Islam, it is a consistent idea of religion and open-minded.”
Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics
As quoted in A Logical Journey: From Gödel to Philosophy (1996) by Hao Wang
“Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.”
Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer
Zen Masters : The Wisdom of Frank Zappa (2003)
