Thomas Jefferson Quotes

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it. The moment we want to disbelieve anything we have previously believed we suddenly discover not only that there is a mass of evidence against it but that this evidence was starting us in the face all the time.

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

It's human nature to make the complex manageable and determine things that fit your conclusions. That's bias.

People just see what they want to see.

I think everyone does selective reading. Everybody has a filter, and that is real easy for critics to see things from their perspectives, and I'm going, I didn't mean that at all. And believers do the same.

Theory can blind observation.

A man sees what he wants to see, And disregards the rest.

I think if somebody is so set in their ways about what they feel about something - and you get this a lot in academia, of course, and also different sorts of journalism too - you're going to sweep under the carpet the facts that don't suit your thesis. And I think that happens quite a lot in the courtroom, for instance.

We perceive through our senses a person, a situation or an event, and in an instant, we project our mental models - our fears, background and experiences - onto that perception. This often results in cognitive errors, which means we judge and respond incorrectly.

All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want.

In intelligence you can justify almost anything you want to if you go about it with enough zeal and effort which is what happened.

Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question.

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

Most people see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what they've been told to see, what conventional wisdom tells them to see - not what is right in front of them in its pristine condition.

We hew and saw and plane facts to make them dovetail with our prejudices, so that they become mere ornaments with which to parade our objectivity.

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.... Without knowing it, we are coloring everything, putting our spin on it all.

It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias.

Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.

The passion to interpret as madness that with which we disagree seems to have infected the best of contemporary minds.

There's no way to remove the observer - us - from our perceptions of the world.

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views.

Our pride is tied up in being right. We tend to favor data that confirm our beliefs, so we don't see alternatives. Too often, leaders practice defense routines that become self-reinforcing.

When we describe what the other person is really like, I suppose we often picture what we want. We look through the prism of our need.