Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.

We make up any excuse to preserve myths about people we love, but the reverse is also true; if we dislike an individual we adamantly resist changing our opinion, even when somebody offers proof of his decency, because it's vital to have myths about both the gods and devils in our lives.

We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

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.

Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference.

People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

People still retain the errors of their childhood, their nation, and their age, long after they have accepted the truths needed to refute them.

Old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.

I think the misconceptions, there are certain people that are fixed in those with those beliefs, and been in those for twenty-five years, you're not going to change them.... What you've got to do is basically talk to the future about what you want to with the country.

It is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed by habit

The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget old ideas.

Intellectually, most people never wash. They never free their minds of the accumulated rubbish of centuries.

New insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works...images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. That is why the discipline of managing mental models - surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works - promises to be a major breakthrough for learning organizations.

Would there not be the greatest reason to apprehend, that error in the first sentence would be the parent of error in the second sentence? That the strong bias of one decision would be apt to overrule the influence of any new lights, which might be brought to vary the complexion of another decision? Those, who know any thing of human nature, will not hesitate to answer these questions in the affirmative.

No evidence against a firmly-held belief, no matter how good or abundant it may be, will sway the true believer.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Scholars do one of two things when they discover information that doesn't fit what they already know. Either they sweep it aside so it doesn't bring their cherished theories into question or they focus on it with laserlike intensity and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities.

Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired

The problem is, most people don't like to hear suggestions that directly confront or run counter to their most sacred beliefs.

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.

But people as a rule believe only what they want to believe, and if you tell them anything else they'll call you a trouble-maker and get rid of you and never give you your job back, even if what you said is proved spot on right by time.