Martin Seligman Quotes

My grandfather was a police officer. He taught Dad about lie detectors and police interrogation methods, so Dad got this old World War II lie detector and used it on us regularly. He was obsessed with the truth.

It takes a long time to learn that a courtroom is the last place in the world for learning the truth.

I like to push people till I get the truth out of them. Get them drunk, or whatever. Then discover what they really think. Push them and push them and push them.

In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.

I made a habit always to hear the Indians; and although they very often lie to me, I do not show them any displeasure for it, for I do not believe them and I do not decide anything until I have found out the truth.

I think academics are infuriating. For every expert on Shakespeare there is another one to cancel his theory out. It drives you up the wall. I think the greatest form of finding out the truth is through fantasy.

The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.

The government that governs from afar absolutely requires that the truth and the facts reach its knowledge by every possible channel, so that it may weigh and estimate them better, and this need increases when a country like the Philippines is concerned, where the inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the authorities.

Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.

While the notion that torture works has been glorified in television shows and movies, the simple truth is this: torture has never been an effective interrogation method.

I like to push people till I get the truth out of them.

Our job is to get as close to the verified truth as is possible.

Torture is an extremely effective tool for getting people to talk. It is a terrible tool for getting people to tell the truth.

A good lie detector doesn't jump to conclusions but tries to understand the person across the table, her personality, and her motivations. Your goal as a lie spotter isn't to point the finger and say, 'You're lying' - your goal is to get to the truth.

Utter truth is essential...and to get that truth may take a lot of searching and long hours.

We do not progress from error to truth, but from truth to truth

So when I cover the president, I try to remember two things: First, if you don't ask, you don't find out; and second, the questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do.

There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily

Truth is a torch, but a terrific one; therefore we all try to reach it with closed eyes, lest we should be scorched.

Skepticism is not an end in itself; it is a tool for the discovery of truths.

I have one request: may I never use my reason against truth.

Torture gives you reliable and unreliable information. That's the reason why most people in the world don't do it. So this idea that you have to torture people in order to protect national security is a false argument, and I reject it.

Unless we love the truth we cannot know it.