Tao Lin Quotes

I have heard it remarked that men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion they have not reasoned themselves into.

The human mind can hardly remain entirely free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made.

The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it. The moment we want to disbelieve anything we have previously believed we suddenly discover not only that there is a mass of evidence against it but that this evidence was starting us in the face all the time.

Some one has said that most of us don't think, we just occasionally rearrange our prejudices.

The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it representative of a whole class.

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.

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

It is quite hurtful when people make a judgement without even really watching me and saying things like, 'I'm not watching if she's on' or 'I don't like change.'

It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias.

You see what you expect to see, Severus.

The indoctrination is so deep that educated people think they’re being objective.

Men see what they expect to see.

To me, it doesn't matter if your scapegoats are the Jews, the homosexuals, the male sex, the Masons, the Jesuits, the Welfare Parasites, the Power Elite, the female sex, the vegetarians, or the Communist Party. To the extent that you need a scapegoat, you simply have not got your brain programmed to work as an efficient problem-solving machine.

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

To be prejudiced is the privilege of the thinking human being. ... The open mind is the empty mind.

We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic.

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

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!

We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.

When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.

Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.

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

Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.