Michael Shermer Quotes

If you have a pre-conceived idea of the world, you edit information. When it leads you down a certain road, you don't challenge your own beliefs.

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.

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

Men freely believe that which they desire.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it. The moment we want to disbelieve anything we have previously believed we suddenly discover not only that there is a mass of evidence against it but that this evidence was starting us in the face all the time.

Our pride is tied up in being right. We tend to favor data that confirm our beliefs, so we don't see alternatives. Too often, leaders practice defense routines that become self-reinforcing.

The first step to believing something is true is wanting to believe it is true... or being afraid it is.

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

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

How can you take seriously someone who likes to believe something because he finds it 'comforting'?

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

Even intelligent people succumb to their own propaganda.

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

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

We tend to believe our own propaganda a little too completely.

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.

People are going to believe what they want to believe.

The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.

So much is man the slave of his heart that he will shut his eyes to what does not please him and believe all that he hopes.

I have never known so much naive conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty.

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.

I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me.

It's what a fellow thinks he knows that hurts him.

In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant. One motto on the show is, 'Keep your facts, I'm going with the truth.'

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.