Sidney Hook Quotes

Media bias is one thing. Rejection of reality is another

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

In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant. One motto on the show is, 'Keep your facts, I'm going with the truth.'

We are willing to believe anything other than the truth.

There are many people out there who don't even think of themselves as being averse to facts, but the truth is, they are not getting it.

Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.

You know the problem, we don't want to believe what we know.

People want reality that tells them how right they are all the time.

It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

We have a never sated appetite for self deception.

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.

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.

Some people have a peculiar faculty for denying facts.

A form of self-delusion.

People who refuse to accept unpleasant truths have no right to complain about politicians who lie to them. What other kind of candidates would such people elect?

It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.

Men prefer the false due to habit, passion, will. Preference for truth is rare. Men are ruled by their fear of truth.

How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces...they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals-anything or anyone-but never themselves.

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

We humans, you see, have an infinite capacity for self-rationalization.

The human race's favorite method for being in control of facts is to ignore them.

That's fairly common. We don't believe anything we don't want to believe.

And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth.

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.