Horace Mann Quotes

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth - that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.

I think belief is like having the first Microsoft Windows - it's so rudimentary, in the human brainwork, it's so obviously a sham.

The brain needs to have a story; it needs to have a logical screenplay telling where we're coming from and what we're going to.

There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses.

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.

One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true of false. It comes to be dominating thought in one's mind.

A feeling is not a fact.

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there's something new in our way of thinking - it's that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.

The strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence.

Reality is mind-made.

Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world.

I'd ask people to keep in mind the idea that if you really understand something, it's even more important for you to consider the possibility of your wrongness. Even if it takes someone dumber than you to point that out.

Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.

The way you think either expresses or undermines faith.

You might think that shifting your thoughts is as easy as setting your mind to it. But stressful thoughts aren't held in place through choice or will power. They're held in place through perceived truth value.

The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence but of the coherence of the story the mind has managed to construct.

Men do not often dare to avow, even to themselves, the slow progress reason has made in their minds; but they are ready to follow it if it is presented to them in a lively and striking manner, and forces them to recognize it.

If you believe something enough, it comes true eventually, and that's so true even with lies. If you tell yourself a lie, after a few years you'll think it's true.

People may believe correct things for the damndest and weirdest of wrong reasons.

There are infinite possibilities of error, and more cranks take up fashionable untruths than unfashionable truths.

A belief system is nothing more than a thought you've thought over and over again.

The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.

Whatever a person frequently thinks and reflects on, that will become the inclination of their mind.