Blaise Pascal Quotes

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you tell kids they're stupid--directly or indirectly--sooner or later they start to believe it.

Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate.

One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true or false.

One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.

My opinion about myself is so based on what other people think of me.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

I often think you bring unhappiness on yourself, because if you don't like yourself very much, you allow yourself to be influenced by people who reinforce that.

After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.

I am ultimately convinced that people must first be told that so and so is great, and then, after a period of given time, they come to believe it for themselves.

Psychologically, when you hear something a number of times, you start to believe it.

It is possible that people need to believe they are unmanaged if they are to be managed effectively.

The thing is, when everyone is trying to persuade you that a thing you know to be true isn't actually true, you start to believe them: not because it is true but because it's easier. It's just the easy way out.

Pretend long enough that you belong, and eventually even you will believe it." - Gallen

Pretty That's what I am, I guess. I mean, people have been telling me that's what I am since I was two. Maybe younger. Pretty as a picture. (Who wants to be a cliché?) Pretty as an angel. (Can you see them?) Pretty as a butterfly. (But isn't that really just a glam bug?) Cliché, invisible, or insectlike, I grew up knowing I was pretty and believing everything good about me had to do with how I looked. The mirror was my best friend. Until it started telling me I wasn't really pretty enough.

I believe that people believe what they believe they believe.

Patty knew, in her heart, that he was wrong in his impression of her. And the mistake she went to go on to make, the really big life mistake, was to go along with Walter's version of her in spite of knowing that it wasn't right. He seemed so certain of her goodness that eventually he wore her down.

My father has a way of persuading people without charm that has always confused me. He states his opinions as if they’re facts, and somehow his complete lack of doubt makes you believe him. That quality frightens me now, because I know what he told me: that I was broken, that I was worthless, that I was nothing. How many of those things did he make me believe?

If you hear how wonderful you are often enough, you begin to believe it, no matter how you try to resist it.

Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.

We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.

Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric of opinion is threatened with ruin?

By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.

We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

We'll become whoever we trust the most says we are.