“Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”

Often given as: A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
Or: A mind that is stretched by a new idea can never go back to its old dimensions.
Actually by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior, from " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table https://books.google.com/books?id=BoQ3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA502&dq=%22stretched+by+a+new+idea%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidspn60tTJAhVJ1GMKHbt3Bn0Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%22stretched%20by%20a%20new%20idea%22&f=false", originally published in The Atlantic, September 1858.
Misattributed

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Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 107
United States Supreme Court justice 1841–1935

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Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo

“A man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Also reported as "One's mind" instead of "A man's mind", and "can never go back" or "never regains" instead of "never goes back"; most likely properly attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Misattributed

Carl Hiaasen photo
Ben Carson photo

“The mind, once stretched by an idea, never returns to its original dimension.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 224

Albert Einstein photo

“The mind that opens to a new idea, Never comes back to its original size.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Actually said by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in his book The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: "Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions."
Misattributed

Colin Wilson photo
`Abdu'l-Bahá photo

“Humanity has emerged from its former degrees of limitation and preliminary training. Man must now become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moralities, new capacities.”

`Abdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921) Son of Bahá'u'lláh and leader of the Bahá'í Faith

"The True Modernism" http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/c/FWU/fwu-1.html
Foundations of World Unity
Context: Humanity has emerged from its former degrees of limitation and preliminary training. Man must now become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moralities, new capacities. New bounties, bestowals and perfections are awaiting and already descending upon him.

Adam Smith photo
Jean Jacques Rousseau photo

“At first our pupil had merely sensations, now he has ideas; he could only feel, now he reasons. For from the comparison of many successive or simultaneous sensations and the judgment arrived at with regard to them, there springs a sort of mixed or complex sensation which I call an idea. The way in which ideas are formed gives a character to the human mind. The mind which derives its ideas from real relations is thorough; the mind which relies on apparent relations is superficial. He who sees relations as they are has an exact mind; he who fails to estimate them aright has an inaccurate mind; he who concocts imaginary relations, which have no real existence, is a madman; he who does not perceive any relation at all is an imbecile. Clever men are distinguished from others by their greater or less aptitude for the comparison of ideas and the discovery of relations between them. Simple ideas consist merely of sensations compared one with another. Simple sensations involve judgments, as do the complex sensations which I call simple ideas. In the sensation the judgment is purely passive; it affirms that I feel what I feel. In the percept or idea the judgment is active; it connects, compares, it discriminates between relations not perceived by the senses. That is the whole difference; but it is a great difference. Nature never deceives us; we deceive ourselves.”

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book III

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