John Locke Quotes

Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

Few things have done more harm than the belief on the part of individuals or groups (or tribes or states or nations or churches) that he or she or they are in sole possession of the truth: especially about how to live, what to be and do - and that those who differ from them are not merely mistaken, but wicked or mad: and need restraining or suppressing.

How prone we are to come to the consideration of every question with heads and hearts pre-occupied! How prone to shrink from any opinion, however reasonable, if it be opposed to any, however unreasonable, of our own! How disposed are we to judge, in anger, those who call upon us to think, and encourage us to enquire! To question our prejudices seems nothing less than sacrilege; to break the chains of our ignorance, nothing short of impiety!

I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.

Another source of fallacy is the vicious circle of illusions which consists on the one hand of believing what we see, and on the other in seeing what we believe.

… people reject the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views.

Public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice

I wouldn’t say she is open-minded about her views of the Middle East so much as empty headed.

There are …, some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry — the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth.

It doesn't make it any easier that people form opinions and make judgment calls and think I'm something that I'm not or do things that I don't.

Most of what we know or assume to know is wrong one way or another.

I know what people think I am. People think I'm dumb. People think I party all the time. People think I'm ignorant.

I like illusion when it is so convincing that we might as well see reality this way - I like to present to our belief system something that is convincing, that 'we know not to be.'

There's certain things that people hold as truth but that are not always necessarily true.

Perception is not always reality.

I think it's true that people seemed to have had a kind of tunnel vision in my regard, and that has been something that I've been having to fight against for a long time.

Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.

Prejudice does not mean false ideas, but only ... opinions adopted before examination.

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth - that error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

Ignorance is the wet-nurse of prejudice.

If you attach your mind to any ideology, you're going to be on a road, and that road may or may not lead you in a good direction. But you're gonna stay on that road because you are attached to an ideology. It could be a terrible road, but you stick with it regardless of rational thinking.

As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.

The problem with the Tea Party is they're all ignorant hillbillies who drink moonshine and ride around on mules. And they believe in stereotypes too.

A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.