Always seek out new ideas and open new channels of thought

• Be an explorer. Actively seek out new ideas. There are new worlds, options, products, friends, methods and ideas waiting to be discovered. Venture off the beaten path. John Kehoe
• Be an explorer…read, surf the internet, visit customers, enjoy arts, watch children play…do anything to prevent yourself from becoming a prisoner of your knowledge, experience, and current view of the world. Charles Thompson
• Renewal requires opening yourself up to new ways of thinking and feeling. Deborah Day
• Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Henry David Thoreau
• A man practices the art he is unafraid of new ideas, new theories and new philosophies. When he has the curiosity to experiment–to test and try new ways of living and thinking. Wilfred A. Peterson
• Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.  Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.  It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.  Christopher Morley
• I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.  John Cage
• Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you’re working on. Thomas Alva Edison
• Go exploring. Explore ideas, places, and opinions. The inside of the echo chamber is where all the boring people hang out.   Jessica Hagy
• Ideas,  Thinking,  Open mindedness,  Beginner’s mind,  Learning,  Exploration

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Feed your mind with new, stimulating inputs

• The mind needs stimulation. Your sensory input gets stored in memory. By giving your mind fresh inputs each day, your memories get triggered and combined with the new input. Sometimes you will get ideas or gain new perspectives. Charles Cave
• Open your mind up to things that have no connection with the problem you’re trying to solve: subscribe to an unusual magazine; spend a morning at an elementary school; go to work two hours early; test drive an exotic car; attend a city council meeting, try an Indonesian recipe. Roger von Oech
• A man practices the art of adventure when he breaks the chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books, traveling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and adopting new viewpoints. Wilfred Peterson
• Read every day something no one else is reading. Think every day something no one else is thinking. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity. Christopher Darlington Morley
• There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and forty- eight. Ezra Pound
• The unfed mind devours itself. Gore Vidal
• Meet regularly with someone who holds vastly different views than you. Jackson Brown Jr.

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Look at things in a new and fresh way

• One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things. Henry Miller
• There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were and ask why not? Robert Kennedy
• Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. Albert Szent- Gyorgyi
• A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience. Oliver Wendell Holmes
• A great thought begins by seeing something differently, with a shift of the mind’s eye. Albert Einstein
• ..means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way. William James
• Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. Edward de Bono
• Do it like it’s the first time. A beginner’s mind is open and an open mind innovates. Danielle LaPorte
• For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them. Thich Nhat Hanh
• We need – and should encourage and honour – not only discoverers of facts hitherto unknown but explorers of ideas and rethinkers of values. Walter Moberly
• If you’re thinking like everyone else, then you aren’t thinking.
• Explore the familiar with new eyes

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Explore others’ opinions and points of view with an open mind

• Read articles and books and speak to people with entirely different points of view from our own. We form opinions, then spend our whole lives validating what we believe to be true. There so much we can learn and explore. Richard Carlson
• Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields. Peter Borden
• I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me. Dudley Malone
• We form opinions and then spend our entire lifetime validating what we believe to be true. This rigidity is sad, because there is so much we can learn from points of view that are different from our own. It’s also sad because the stubbornness it takes to keep our heart and mind closed to everything other than our own point of view creates a great deal of inner stress.
• If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead. Gelett Burgess
• If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions.
• We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed, but to those who have differed. Charles Caleb Colton
• Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain
• New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. John Locke
• Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance. Robert Quillen
• We find comfort among those who agree with us—growth among those who don’t. Frank A. Clark
• The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new. Pema Chodron
• In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth and have begun striving for ourselves. Buddha
• Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom. Merry Browne
• Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social enviroment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions. Albert Einstein
• Don’t be astonished at new ideas; you know it does not cease to be true because it is not accepted by many. Benedict de Spinoza
• Opinion,  Open-mindedness

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Remember there are many valuable perspectives

• Right view is having no particular, fixed view, which means seeing that all views are limited, that no particular view is the only view. They’re all restricted, they’re all limited, they’re all fragmented. Actually, the right view is no view. Genpo Roshi
• I let go of my need to convince others of my point of view. When I remain open to all points of view, my dreams and desires will flow with nature’s desires. Deepak Chopra
• In reality, there are an infinite number of perspectives, but we act as if there were only one. Genpo Roshi
• Let’s consciously evolve as individuals and as a culture to a “second- tier” level of consciousness. Here, for the first time, we can hold multiple perspectives. No one is smart enough to be 100% wrong. Ken Wilber
• There is no truth. Only points of view. Dame Edith Sitwell
• To believe the world is only as you think it is, is stupid Carlos Castaneda
• If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary. Dan Millman
• Always respect another’s opinion and another’s point of view. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
• We find comfort among those who agree with us–growth among those who don’t. Frank A. Clark
• Over 7 billion people in this world and a single reality? Not very realistic. Open your minds. Lucas T. Andrietti
• You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. Friedrich Nietzsche
• There are no facts, only interpretations. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Differences challenge assumptions. Anne Wilson Schaef
• Perspective

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Harness the power and energy of new ideas

• A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. John F. Kennedy
• A mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions. Oliver Wendall Holmes
• All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea. Napoleon Hill
• All riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas – not money. Robert Collier
• An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Victor Hugo
• Capital isn’t so important in business. Experience isn’t so important. You can get both these things. What is important is ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and your life. Harvey Firestone
• Everything begins with an idea. Earl Nightingale
• Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes. Napoleon Hill
• Ideas are the mightiest influence on earth. One great thought breathed into man may regenerate him. William E. Channing
• Ideas are the source of all things. Plato
• Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea. Jim Rohn
• Ideas come from God. Albert Einstein
• Ideas shape the course of history. John Maynard Keynes
• Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive. Napoleon Hill
• New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion. Henry David Thoreau
• Nothing in the world is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.
• Success is often just an idea away. Frank Tyger
• The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size. Albert Einstein
• There is nothing in the world more powerful than an idea. No weapon can destroy it; no power can conquer it except the power of another idea. James R. Smith
• When we conceive a new idea, we are thinking directly from the creativity of God. Ernest Holmes
• You are only one inch, one step, one idea, from turning onto the boulevard of beauty in your own life. Somerset Maughan
• Ideas

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Broaden or change your perspective

• The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. Muhammad Ali
• Some people like living in black and white worlds. Let them stay there. Appreciate all the colors you see in your world though. Ashly Lorenzana
• The thing is, it’s very dangerous to have a fixed idea. A person with a fixed idea will always find some way of convincing himself in the end that he is right. Atle Selberg
• We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking. Joel Osteen
• Perspective

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Learn to generate fresh, new ideas through the power of creative thinking

• Creativity challenges the status quo. Ruth Richards
• Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality. Arthur Koestler
• Creative thinking

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Think outside the box

• The thinking that got us to where we are is not the thinking that will get us to where we want to be. Albert Einstein
• Every really new idea looks crazy at first. Abraham H. Maslow
• If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. Albert Einstein
• An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. Oscar Wilde
• Every really new idea looks crazy at first. Abraham H. Maslow
• When all think alike, no one is thinking. Walter Lippmann
• Instead of thinking outside the box, just get rid of it.
• A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person, because he conforms to a pattern; he repeats phrases and thinks in a groove. Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Dare to break convention and habitual ways of doing things

• The worship of convention has never yet led to astonishment and a joyous leap in human potential. Tama J. Kieves
• The most damaging phrase in the language is: ‘It’s always been done that way.’ Grace Murray Hopper
• Remember that the six most expensive words in business are: ‘We’ve always done it that way.’ Catherine DeVry
• Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there’s no particular virtue in doing things the way they always have been done. Rudolf Flesch
• Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction. Pablo Picasso
• Innovation comes from creative destruction. Yoshihisa Tabuchi
• Slaying sacred cows makes great steaks. Dick Nicolosi
• If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
• In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. Bertrand Russell
• The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. K. Galbraith
• It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard; it’s getting rid of the old ones. John Maynard Keynes
• Routines and rituals

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Question conventional opinion

• Doubt is healthy. It tests one’s convictions. 
• I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. Wilson Mizner
• Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. Clarence Darrow
• In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. Bertrand Russell
• The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. John Stuart Mill
• Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it – even if I have said it – unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. Buddha
• If you believe everything you read, you better not read. Japanese Proverb
• Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs. Robert Peel
• Sacred cows make the best hamburgers. Mark Twain
• Public opinion… requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits. Walter Bagehot
• I’m not sure I want popular opinion on my side – I’ve noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts. Bethania McKenstry
• But it is just when opinions universally prevail, and we have added lip service to their authority that we become sometimes most keenly conscious that we do not believe a word that we are saying. Virginia Woolf
• Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain
• Acknowledge the complexity of the world and resist the impression that you easily understand it. People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whom have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It’s a basic fact of life that many things “everybody knows” turn out to be wrong. Jim Rogers
• Humans have a strong desire to be part of a group. That desire makes us susceptible to fads, fashions, and idea contagions. Michael Mauboussin
• A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. Thomas Paine
• Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
• Opinion

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Challenge your  ideas

• We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side. If you can’t state arguments against what you believe better than your detractors, you don’t know enough. Charlie Munger

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Challenge your assumptions

• Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. Alan Alda
• Check your assumptions. In fact, check your assumptions at the door. Lois McMaster Bujold
• The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable. Paul Broca
• The harder you fight to hold on to specific assumptions, the more likely there’s gold in letting go of them. John Seely Brown
• Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness. Marshall McLuhan
• You must stick to your conviction but be ready to abandon your assumptions. Denis Waitley
• If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance. Orville Wright
• Assumption

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What rules can you get rid of?

• The first step to being creative is to get rid of your own unwritten rules. Mary M. Byers
• The only rule is that there are no rules. Del Close
• If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. Katharine Hepburn
• It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy. Steve Jobs
• Any fool can make a rule and any fool will mind it. Henry David Thoreau
• Rules are made for people who aren’t willing to make up their own. Chuck Yeager

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Don’t stop questioning

• Curiosity and irreverence go together. Curiosity cannot exist without the other. Curiosity asks, “Is this true?” “Just because this has always been the way, is the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?” To the questioner, nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search of ideas no matter where they may lead. Saul D. Alinsky
• Questions

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Questions

• Are you open to new ideas?
• What change do you need to make in how you see the world?
• When was the last time you tried something new?
• When was the last time you did something for the first time?

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On a lighter note

• Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow.  Glen Beaman

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