D. A. Carson Quotes

Our nature is to desperately want to believe and to take what we believe is the quickest path there even against our better judgment.

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

It is in the nature of human beings to bend information in the direction of desired conclusions.

The thing is, when everyone is trying to persuade you that a thing you know to be true isn't actually true, you start to believe them: not because it is true but because it's easier. It's just the easy way out.

If you want something to be true badly enough, you can rewrite it that way, in your head. You can even start to believe it.

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

It's very difficult to lie to yourself about certain things. I'm not necessarily convinced about how information is gathered and I don't think the credence that's given to it is valid.

Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something

In my experience, you always think you know what you're doing; you always think you can explain, but you always discover, years later, that you didn't and you couldn't. This leads me to suspect that the principal function of human reason is to rationalize what your lizard brain demands of you. That's my idea.

Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.

Of course you have to create the conditions of a certain belief. And maybe ignoring something that you don't want to see, at least for the time of the shooting.

Why is it people who want the truth never believe it when they hear it?

…the majority of men do not think in order to know the truth, but in order to assure themselves that the life which they lead, and which is agreeable and habitual to them, is the one which coincides with the truth.

That's fairly common. We don't believe anything we don't want to believe.

The human mind has an infinite capacity for self-deception.

The worst derangement of the spirit is to believe things because we want them to be so, not because we have seen them for what they are.

Your job as a scientist is to figure out how you're fooling yourself.

Why do I want to believe what I believe?... Science, to put it somewhat vulgarly, is a technique to keep yourself from kidding yourself.

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality.

I told myself it was the snow—she couldn’t possibly get to Philadelphia on the roads. I told myself a hundred lies. Children do that. It’s amazing the sorts of things you’ll make yourself believe.

We believe whatever we want to believe.

People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.