Thomas Szasz Quotes

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.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

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.

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.

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

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.

Analysis is more likely to adjust evidence than to adjust itself.

When it comes to believing things without actual evidence, we all incline to what we find most attractive.

Truth is the ricochet of a prejudice bouncing off a fact.

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 human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.

Men first make up their minds (and the smaller the mind the sooner made up), and then seek for the reasons; and if they chance to stumble upon a good reason, of course they do not reject it. But though they are right, they are only right by chance.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

Theory can blind observation.

Different people, in good faith, can look at the same fact and interpret it differently. But that's where an interesting conversation begins.

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.

You know, there's nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying.

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.

Logic has made me hated in the world.

We are all very ready to believe what we like.

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

We find those who do not agree with us disagreeable.

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

Most of us employ the Internet not to seek the best information, but rather to select information that confirms our prejudices.

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