Thomas More Quotes

It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.

No one is a good judge in his own cause.

We believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.

Different men often see the same subject in different lights

Man is always partial and is quite right to be. Even impartiality is partial.

Nothing hath an uglier Look to us than Reason, when it is not of our side.

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

Sometimes people invent things because they want to stay alive or feed their children or conquer the village next door. But just as often, new ideas come into the world simply because they're fun. And here's the really strange thing: many of those playful but seemingly frivolous inventions ended up sparking momentous transformations in science, in politics and society.

I don't believe it's humanly possible to be free of bias.

No man can see his own prejudices.

I don't like principles. I prefer prejudices.

To a critic, no explanation will do. To a fan, no explanation is needed.

We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make.

Each man has his fancy.

Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.

But what is significant is that if you don't want to like and accept somebody, one excuse is as good as another. The objective facts don't matter, and the reasons are never as ‘reasonable' as we like to think they are.

When dealing with people, let us remember that we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. ...Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

What if I never stop inventing?

Every word is a preconceived judgment.

People project their own dreams, fantasies, and prejudices onto my life. So people are either fans, or jealous, or disagree. Everybody marches to a different drummer.

Necessity is an interpretation, not a fact.

You cannot have a theory without principles. Principles is another name for prejudices.

We often contradict an opinion for no other reason than that we do not like the tone in which it is expressed.

Humans see what they want to see.

When we come to judge others it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.