Barack Obama Quotes

Who wants to hear that he is wrong when he can be told that he is right? …. We are losing the ability to change our mind because of our media.

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.

Most of us employ the Internet not to seek the best information, but rather to select information that confirms our prejudices.

I don't really believe that people read just the stuff they agree with.

If you're always in the company of people who agree with you, you're going to think of people who don't agree with you as venal or stupid. I constantly tell my students that if they're in the company of people who always say "amen" to what you say, find other company. And that is the source of illiberalism, when you are unable to listen to someone who thinks differently. That's when democracies are in trouble.

For too many of us, it's become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or on college campuses, or places of worship or especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it's true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there.

Belief gets in the way of learning.

It feels great to have your own views reflected back to you, and you feel so right, but actually it's very dangerous. Because to make good decisions, you need to have a clear view of what all the options are.

I don't question things that go against what I believe very much. But boy, the stuff that I really want to believe, I really question a lot.

It can be easy and tempting, especially during a presidential campaign, to listen only to opinions that mirror and fortify one's own. That's not ideal, because it eliminates learning and makes it impossible for people to understand what they dismiss as 'the other side.'

Resist the temptation to subject yourself only to that which re-affirms what you already think.

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you'll be.

When did ignorance become a point of view?

I'd ask people to keep in mind the idea that if you really understand something, it's even more important for you to consider the possibility of your wrongness. Even if it takes someone dumber than you to point that out.

Don't fall into the trap of believing so deeply in your own ideology that you cannot even see the flaws in it.

When permitted to listen to alternative opinions and engage in substantive debate, people have been known to change their minds. It can happen.

It's not because my mind is made up that I don't want you to confuse me with any more facts. It's because my mind isn't made up. I already have more facts than I can cope with.

People don't care to read what they already think or what any people think - they know all that well enough. They want to know what they ought to think.

The problem that we have in America now is, some people only see the positive stuff and wave off the toxic stuff, and some people only see the toxic stuff and wave off the positive stuff. You can't have an honest conversation.

The greatest obstacle to discovering the truth is being convinced that you already know it.

A great many people do not have the right to their own opinion because they don't know what they are talking about.

Be skeptical, but not as a social position, not claiming to be so intelligent that you cannot believe what other people say. It's not about being right and making everybody else wrong. No, you are skeptical because you know without a doubt that everybody lives in their own story, and in their story they have their own truth. But it's only truth in their mind, just as your truth is only truth in your mind, and nobody else's.

The most active people in the country know different things, and because each one tends to hear mostly and deal mostly with people with whom they agree, they are reinforced not simply in the conviction that they are right, which is totally appropriate, but that they are the majority. So you have both sides, the Left and the Right, thinking that the majority of the country is really with them.

I have learned to be less confident in the conclusions of human reason, and give more credit to the honesty of contrary opinions.