Robert Kuok (1923) Malaysian businessman
Cap 1 "Moulded by Mother"
Source: The Jagged Orbit (1969), Chapter 44, “A Firm Decision to Go Into the Wagon-Fixing Business in a Big Way” (p. 132)
Robert Kuok (1923) Malaysian businessman
Cap 1 "Moulded by Mother"
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer
“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
“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
“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
Bob Black book The Abolition of Work
The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or — better still — industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are "free" is lying or stupid. You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed off to work from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home at the end, are habituated to heirarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally grounded phobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the families they start, thus reproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everything else. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they'll likely submit to heirarchy and expertise in everything. They're used to it.