Sheri S. Tepper Quotes

People believe what they want to believe.

Men can reason themselves into almost any sort of opinion if they are so inclined.

Once you reject evidence as a source of knowledge, you don't gotta believe nothin' you don't like.

The truth often does sound unconvincing.

If you believe you are right, or you believe you are wrong, you're right. Whenever you are certain about it, you will support it. Remember that.

If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.

The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. According to Renan, "The day after that on which the world should no longer believe in God, atheists would be the wretchedest of all men."

They say seeing is believing, but the opposite is true. Believing is seeing.

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

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

We see what we want to believe.

Some guys-a lot of guys-don't believe what they are seeing, especially if it gets in the way of what they want to eat or drink or believe. Me, I don't believe in God. But if i saw him, I would. I wouldn't just go around saying, "Jesus, that was a great special effect." The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing.

What you see is evidence of what you believe.

People hear what they want and expect to hear, not what is said.

What people believe prevails over the truth.

We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

Not believing has a sickness which is believing a little.

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

People are stupid... They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they're afraid it might be true.

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

I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe.

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism.

In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true.

We believe whatever we want to believe.