Terry McMillan Quotes

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Our nature is to desperately want to believe and to take what we believe is the quickest path there even against our better judgment.

We believe what we want to, what we need to. The corollary is that we choose not to see what we'd rather pretend doesn't exist.

I told myself it was the snow—she couldn’t possibly get to Philadelphia on the roads. I told myself a hundred lies. Children do that. It’s amazing the sorts of things you’ll make yourself believe.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire

We have a never sated appetite for self deception.

The things that we want we willingly believe, and the things that we think we expect everyone else to think.

A form of self-delusion.

People believed what they wanted to believe, no matter what was right in front of their eyes.

Sometimes I wanted to believe something so badly, I deliberately manufactured excuses and ignored painful reality.

For what a man would like to be true, that he more readily believes.

It's the easiest thing in the world for a man to deceive himself.

Everyone, including skeptics, will generate delusions that match their views. That is how a normal and healthy brain works. Skeptics are not exempt from self-delusion.

You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

Men freely believe that which they desire.

Men quickly find a theory that adapts itself to their desires.

People can rationalize in funny ways to hold onto their dreams and needs.

This is in us: a certain sense of denial, a certain sense of groupthink. This is not something that sits on one party line or the other. We've seen it in all permutations throughout history, and at the core of it is a certain insistence that what we want to be true is now true, and what we don't like is now false.

One theme we look at is what psychologists call motivated reasoning; lay people refer to it as self-deception, wishful thinking or rationalization. The list of creative ways people have for reaching conclusions they wish to reach and dismissing conclusions they find threatening is amazing. We've shown that it goes down even to the level of visual perception: You literally see what you want to see.

We are willing to believe anything other than the truth.