It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
It doesn't matter if the truth is right there out in front of your eyes. You will find a way, a mechanism, in order to keep your own system of denial. So as I always say it, denial is a river that runs in the - in Egypt. So we became very good in that.
The fanatical Communist refuses to believe any unfavorable report or evidence about Russia, nor will he be disillusioned by seeing with his own eyes the cruel misery inside the Soviet promised land. It is the true believer's ability to "shut his eyes and stop his ears" to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger, nor disheartened by obstacles, nor baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence.
People who refuse to accept unpleasant truths have no right to complain about politicians who lie to them. What other kind of candidates would such people elect?
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
You believe what you want to believe
The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.
To put more faith in lies and hate than truth and love, is the true atheism.
Don't tell me what I'm doing; I don't want to know.
Ignorance is not bad faith. But persistence in ignorance is.
Who is so deaf or so blind as is he that willfully will neither hear nor see?
Some people have a peculiar faculty for denying facts.
The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.
I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!
An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.
Who is so deafe, as he that will not hear?
Maybe I don't really want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.
Ignorance is indeed bliss, but it is also dangerous and embarrassing.
Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.
Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper
Even a good politician, someone who is very ambitious, chooses not to see trouble.
All my father saw was what he wanted to see.
I never check my bank account. I know that sounds crazy. But I don't know how much is in there. I never know how much is in there. I have an idea - I have a bottom line - but I never look because I always make believe there's never anything in there.
Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. [...] Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.
He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
