Neale Donald Walsch Quotes

People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.

Most people early achieve and later intensify a tendency to process new and disconfirming information so that any original conclusion remains intact. They become people of whom Philip Wylie observed: "You couldn't 't squeeze a dime between what they already know and what they will never learn."

Facts that challenge basic assumptions-and thereby threaten people's livelihood and self-esteem-are simply not absorbed. The mind does not digest them.

We make up any excuse to preserve myths about people we love, but the reverse is also true; if we dislike an individual we adamantly resist changing our opinion, even when somebody offers proof of his decency, because it's vital to have myths about both the gods and devils in our lives.

But people as a rule believe only what they want to believe, and if you tell them anything else they'll call you a trouble-maker and get rid of you and never give you your job back, even if what you said is proved spot on right by time.

Fundamental assumptions in general and scientific assumptions in particular are so hard to overturn because they are based on belief. Beliefs are so hard to overcome because they are irrational and therefore do not yield to logical argument.

The fact is that people would rather cling when they're afraid of something to a priori beliefs than rather open their minds about it.

The point is, folks, for people on the left - and I don't care what kind of clothes they wear, or where they live, people on the left, America is guilty. And there is not a set of facts in the world that's gonna change it. There's not a set of facts in the world that's gonna change anybody's mind.

People readily believe what they want to believe.

False beliefs can be every bit as consoling as true ones, right up until the moment of disillusionment.

The more we are committed to believing that something is true, the less likely we are to believe that its opposite is true, even in the face of clear evidence that shows we are wrong.

People assign much higher probability to the truth of their opinions than is warranted.

When we have learned something, there's this thing called belief perseverance. Having learned something, we tend to cling to that belief, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I believe that people believe what they believe they believe.

The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished; they did not engender those beliefs, and they are powerless to destroy them.

I regard belief as a form of brain damage.

People would believe propagate, spread rumors or conspiracy theories in order to protect their own system of denial.

Most people don’t question the practice of eating meat. Many of these people care about animals and the environment, some deeply. But for some reason-force of habit, cultural norms, resistance to change-there is a fundamental disconnect whereby these feelings don’t translate into changes of behavior.

No evidence against a firmly-held belief, no matter how good or abundant it may be, will sway the true believer.

I'm really interested in self-deception. Really interested in how people live in bubble universes. How people can fail to see the seemingly obvious.

The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.

No evidence is powerful enough to force acceptance of a conclusion that is emotionally distasteful.

Of course you have to create the conditions of a certain belief. And maybe ignoring something that you don't want to see, at least for the time of the shooting.

I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are made.