“My Son, these maxims make a rule
An lump them ay thegither:
The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither.” — Robert Burns, 18th-century Scottish poet

“Ideology is just an escape from thought.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, 20th-century North American economist, statesman, author

“The proper man understands equity, the small man profits.” — Confucius, ancient Chinese sage

“A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.” — G.K. Chesterton, 19th-century English essayist and poet

“Those who give too much attention to trifling things become generally incapable of great ones.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“Our firmest convictions are apt to be the most suspect, they mark our limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries.” — Jose Ortega y Gasset

“The death of dogma is the birth of reality.” — Immanuel Kant, 18th-century Prussian geographer and philosopher

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.” — Francis Bacon, 16th-century English statesman, scientist and author

“When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.”— John Kenneth Galbraith, 20th- century North American economist, author and diplomat

“A fanatic is someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” — Winston Churchill, 20th-century British prime minister and war leader, Nobel Prize-winning author

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.” — John Locke, 17th-century English philosopher

“It is theory that decides what we can observe.” — Albert Einstein, 20th-century Swiss mathematician, physicist and public philosopher