“The mind is like an umbrella - it functions best when open.”

As quoted in The Art of Looking Sideways by w:Alan Fletcher, p. 129

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Do you have more details about the quote "The mind is like an umbrella - it functions best when open." by Walter Gropius?
Walter Gropius photo
Walter Gropius 5
German architect (1883-1969) and founder of the Bauhaus Sch… 1883–1969

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“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/.

“Clouds that are grey
Can no longer be washed clean.
We open the umbrella
And simply paint the sky black.”

Gu Cheng (1956–1993) Chinese poet

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“An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut.”

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)
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“Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fueled by a quotation.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

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“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”

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“My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.”

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The Book of Disquiet
Original: Os meus sonhos são um refúgio estúpido, como um guarda-chuva contra um raio.

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“A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Discours d'ouverture, congrès de la paix http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Congr%C3%A8s_de_la_Paix_1849, [Opening address, Peace Congress], Paris (21 August 1849); published in Actes et paroles - Avant l'exil (1875)
Context: A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas. A day will come when the bullets and bombs are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable arbitration of a great supreme senate which will be to Europe what Parliament is to England, the Diet to Germany, and the Legislative Assembly to France.
A day will come when a cannon will be a museum-piece, as instruments of torture are today. And we will be amazed to think that these things once existed!
A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, facing one another, stretching out their hands across the sea, exchanging their products, their arts, their works of genius, clearing up the globe, making deserts fruitful, ameliorating creation under the eyes of the Creator, and joining together, to reap the well-being of all, these two infinite forces, the fraternity of men and the power of God.

“Strategy should never be an island unto itself, it functions best when fully integrated.”

Julian Cole (1985) Strategy Consultant

https://www.irishtimes.com/advertising-feature/inside-marketing/mastering-strategy-crucial-for-business-success-1.4394295

“Like all neo-puritans you have a mind like an open drain.”

Source: The Jagged Orbit (1969), Chapter 44, “A Firm Decision to Go Into the Wagon-Fixing Business in a Big Way” (p. 132)

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