Leo Tolstoy Quotes

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

My point is that perceptual bias can affect nut jobs and scientists alike. If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind.

… people reject the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views.

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.

A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.

There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.

Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire

When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered

Most people when they come after you for advice come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.

We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices.

People are going to believe what they want to believe.

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.

There is no man so blind as one who has made up his mind.

How prone we are to come to the consideration of every question with heads and hearts pre-occupied! How prone to shrink from any opinion, however reasonable, if it be opposed to any, however unreasonable, of our own! How disposed are we to judge, in anger, those who call upon us to think, and encourage us to enquire! To question our prejudices seems nothing less than sacrilege; to break the chains of our ignorance, nothing short of impiety!

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

If you have a pre-conceived idea of the world, you edit information. When it leads you down a certain road, you don't challenge your own beliefs.

Men freely believe that which they desire.

The first step to believing something is true is wanting to believe it is true... or being afraid it is.

A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.

It's a disease of critics that once they've labeled someone, it's very hard to change their perspective. It's laziness.