Matt Bai Quotes

I hope that I am generous and tolerant, but certainly on the intellectual side I think that there are discoverable truths, and some things that are closer approximations to the truth than others.

The more history I learnt, the less interested I got in winning arguments and the more interested in establishing the truth.

I reject the notion of a post-truth area. I don't believe there is such a thing, and we shouldn't accept that.

We're awash in toxic memes right now. One of the most toxic, I think because it enables so many others, is the idea that truth doesn't matter, that truth is just relative, that there's no such thing as establishing the truth of anything. Your truth, my truth, we're all entitled to our own truths. That's pernicious, it's attractive to many people, and it is used to exploit people in all sorts of nefarious ways. The truth really does matter.

Feelings are not everything! There is very little absolute truth in life.

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.

To avoid being drawn into error, keep a firm grip on the truth.

Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them?

A man ceases to be an honest doubter the moment he refuses one way of getting at the truth because he does not like that way.

Why is it people who want the truth never believe it when they hear it?

I believe that through its rational evaluation of truth and indifference to personal belief, science transcends religious and political divisions and so does bind us into a greater, more resilient whole.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth. Two and two equals a voice outside the window. Two and two equals the wind. The living bird is not its labeled bones.

I care what is actually true, even more than what I hope is true.

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

Seek truth from facts.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

Truth is often a multiplicity of perspectives, and sometimes the more viewpoints and versions of events there are, the closer the reader gets to an overarching truth.

I think it's like everything else; one shouldn't dig too deeply. It's silly to say that with a journalist, but sometimes there is not a truth to be found.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.

To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.

One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.

I think what's always important is not to be contrarian for its own sake but to really get at the truth.