Thomas Clifford Allbutt Quotes

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

Perception is created and twisted so quickly.

Belief and seeing: They are both often wrong.

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

Belief in the absence of illusions is itself an illusion.

I'm particularly interested in how you can't rely on your own perception.

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

I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.

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

It's so easy for us to misperceive and see the things in others that we want to see. And, when we're wrong, and often we're dead wrong, we miss the truth.

People believe what they want to believe.

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

Nothing is easier than self-deceit, since what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.

Our capacity for belief is so plastic, we can convince ourselves of anything. Believing is seeing.

We believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.

The longer you hold a belief, the less likely it is to be true.

Most men … can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty — conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives

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.

Men quickly find a theory that adapts itself to their desires.

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Between hindsight bias, fake causality, positive bias, anchoring/priming, et cetera et cetera, and above all the dreaded confirmation bias, once an idea gets into your head, it's probably going to stay there.

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Interviewers actively fool themselves, finding ways to learn from interviews even if there's actually nothing there to learn from.

Perception is not always reality.

Men gladly believe what they wish. -Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt