Silas Weir Mitchell Quotes

It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.

I'm a filmmaker. I'm always searching for the truth in everything I do. I demand it from my writing partner and my crew, actors, and so hopefully, we're making people think.

I am not 'in pursuit of truth.' It is not my 'quarry.' I am of my human nature a thinker, and conscious of need, responsibility of thinking-speaking with truth. I do not go about hunting 'truths.'

The people who have sufficient passion for the truth to give the truth a chance to prevail, if it runs counter to their bias, are in a minority. How important is this "minority?" It is difficult to say at this point, for, at the present time their influence on governmental decisions is not perceptible.

The inquiry, knowledge, and belief of truth is the sovereign good of human nature.

Those who never retract their opinions, love themselves more than they love truth.

The compelling drive to get at the truth is what improves us all as psychologists and is part and parcel of intellectual integrity. But I do urge that we not let the drive for honesty put blinders on us and cut off our range of vision so that we miss the very thing we set out the understand - namely, the living human being.

I really do love psychology and philosophy but I'm no professional at these things. Because I love seeing the true side of humanity, as I've continued that, I have ultimately lent towards philosophy and psychology but it is not something in which I try to study.

Do not make Mistakes about Character. That is the worst and yet easiest error. Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods. In dealing with men, more than with other things, it is necessary to look within. To know men is different from knowing things. It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.

Man's passion for truth is such that he will welcome the bitterest of all postulates so long as it strikes him as true.

Inquiry is human; blind obedience brutal. Truth never loses by the one but often suffers by the other.

Judgment can be acquired only by acute observation, by actual experience in the school of life, by ceaseless alertness to learn from others, by study of the activities of men who have made notable marks, by striving to analyze the everyday play of causes and effects, by constant study of human nature.

I cannot often enough say, that a man is only a relative and representative nature. Each is a hint of the truth, but far enough from being that truth, which yet he quite newly and inevitably suggests to us. If I seek it in him, I shall not find it.

So little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand.

If any man can convince me and bring home to me that I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance.

It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood.

You must first of all think justly. Don’t sit in judgment over others when you don’t know the truth of the matter.

We must think things not words, or at least we must constantly translate our words into the facts for which they stand, if we are to keep to the real and the true.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.

All is egotism. The only people whose mainspring is not egotism are the dead and perhaps idiots.

Making mental connections is our most crucial learning tool, the essence of human intelligence; to forge links; to go beyond the given; to see patterns, relationships, context.

Adhere to the Truth rather than to the personality, and take to heart the Truth rather than the authority of another.

It is surprising that people do not believe that there is imagination in science. It is a very interesting kind of imagination, unlike that of the artist. The great difficulty is in trying to imagine something that you have never seen, that is consistent in every detail with what has already been seen, and that is different from what has been thought of; furthermore, it must be definite and not a vague proposition. That is indeed difficult.

Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.

The search for truth is really a lot of good fun.