Daily Inspiration Quote by Arthur Hays Sulzberger

The line lands like a friendly warning with teeth: yes, be curious, but don’t be gullible. Sulzberger, a newspaper publisher who helped steer The New York Times through the mid-century churn of war, propaganda, and domestic political paranoia, isn’t merely offering folksy balance. He’s staking out a philosophy of gatekeeping at the precise moment the word started to sound like an insult.

The joke does the heavy lifting. “Open mind” is the liberal credential; “brains fall out” is the punch that polices it. The imagery is bodily and a little grotesque, a reminder that ideas aren’t just decorations but inputs with consequences. It’s also a preemptive strike against the easy caricature of openness as mushy relativism. Sulzberger’s intent is to keep skepticism respectable: you can be receptive without surrendering standards.

The subtext is professional as much as personal. For a publisher, “open-mindedness” is entangled with what gets printed, amplified, normalized. The quip reassures readers (and perhaps advertisers, politicians, and anxious elites) that a major paper can flirt with dissenting views without becoming a megaphone for crankery. At the same time, it quietly asserts authority: someone gets to decide when the mind is “too open,” and in Sulzberger’s world, that someone is the institution with editorial judgment.

In an era crowded with ideological salesmen, the quote sells moderation with a smirk. It’s not anti-intellectual; it’s anti-credulous. And it’s a neat encapsulation of legacy media’s self-image: open to debate, allergic to being played.