Dennis Prager Quotes

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

A big part of the problem that we face today is that our children have been taught at schools that every idea is right, that no one should criticize others' positions, no matter how odious.

When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

Political thinking consists in deciding upon the conclusion first and then finding good arguments for it. An open mind is considered irresponsible.

Avoid false choices driven by ideology.

Who wants to hear that he is wrong when he can be told that he is right? …. We are losing the ability to change our mind because of our media.

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.

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

For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

… the politically engaged will tend also to be the most closed-minded.

I don’t care for ideological people. It’s like those people just want to stop thinking.

We want to have our beliefs, and we want to enforce them on everyone else, but we don't want to have to think about everything that comes along with it.

It's awfully hard to get into the head of a liberal. Instead of logic and reason, they are drawn to emotions and feelings.

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.

They that never peeped beyond the common belief in which their easy understandings were at first indoctrinated are strongly assured of the truth of their receptions.

We always plan too much and always think too little. We resent a call to thinking and hate unfamiliar argument that does not tally with what we already believe or would like to believe.

To accept opinions is to gain the good solid feeling of being correct without having to think.

Human beings never think for themselves; they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

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.

The public knows that human beings are fallible. Only people blinded by ideology fall into the trap of believing in their own infallibility.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view. I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open-minded, pure and simple.

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.

One of the things that really drove me crazy was the way in which college kids, in particular, are educated to think that ideology is dangerous and bad.