Barney Frank Quotes

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.

If you think you're right 80% of the time, you're deluded.

Belief in the absence of illusions is itself an illusion.

The capacity of this body for self delusion appears to this Senator to be unlimited.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

Whatever happens in the world is real, what one thinks should have happened is projection. We suffer more from our fictitious illusion and expectations of reality.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

He's suffering from Politicians' Logic. Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

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

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

Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.

The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in.

It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.

The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions.

Imagination … which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions that are not immediately derived from facts ...

How can we decide matters of public policy when we cannot understand them?

They are most deceived that trusteth most in themselves.

One cannot always be right in our complex world; no dishonor attends an incorrect choice among plausible outcomes drawn from a properly constructed argument.

Wishful thinking is no substitute for reality.

There is something wrong with the way in which we make our decisions. The Government listen too much to the pollsters and the party managers. The trouble is that they are not even very good at politics, and they are entering too much into policy decisions. As a result, there is too much short-termism, too much reacting to events, and not enough shaping of events. We give the impression of being in office but not in power. Far too many important decisions are made for 36 hours' publicity.

Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.

It's not what you don't know that kills you but what you know that isn't so.

Prejudices were deeply rooted; the people really believed themselves to be the richest of the world, even though they lived in destitution. They took the potentialities of the country for actual wealth.