Michael Gerber Quotes

We only see what we want to see; we only hear what we want to hear. Our belief system is just like a mirror that only shows us what we believe.

It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.

People just see what they want to see.

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

To ensure that our views are credible, our brain accepts what our eye sees. To ensure that our views are positive, our eye looks for what our brain wants. The conspiracy between these two servants allows us to live at the fulcrum of stark reality and comforting illusion.

How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces...they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals-anything or anyone-but never themselves.

In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.

When the mind is full of any one subject, that subject seems to recur with extraordinary frequency - it appears to pursue or to meet us at every turn: in every conversation that we hear in every book we open, in every newspaper we take up, the reigning idea recurs; and then we are surprised, and exclaim at these wonderful coincidences.

I know all too well that people only see what they want to see and remember only what they want to remember.

People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.

We only see what we want to see, and hear what we want to hear

She was reflecting back on a truth she had learned over the years: that people heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted, believed what they wanted.

The human animal only sees what it wants to see.

As a rule we perceive what we expect to perceive... The unexpected is usually not received at all.

It's amazing how we can make ourselves believe what we want to.

The average man believes a thing first, and then searches for proof to bolster his opinion

The human mind is a delusion generator, not a window to trurh.

You believe what you want to believe

We falsely interpret the world around us. We ignore evidence that doesn't support our prior beliefs and we convince ourselves we know things we don. We think we know things we don't know.

We see what we want to believe.

People who confuse what they wish were true with what is really true create distorted pictures of reality that make it impossible for them to make the best choices.

Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.

Men first make up their minds (and the smaller the mind the sooner made up), and then seek for the reasons; and if they chance to stumble upon a good reason, of course they do not reject it. But though they are right, they are only right by chance.