Bertrand Russell Quotes

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

My point is that perceptual bias can affect nut jobs and scientists alike. If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

We don’t usually know how to see beyond our presuppositions (the reason, of course, why so many false views of indubitable past geniuses seem so strange to us today.)

Most men … can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty — conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives

Another source of fallacy is the vicious circle of illusions which consists on the one hand of believing what we see, and on the other in seeing what we believe.

Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

If you have a pre-conceived idea of the world, you edit information. When it leads you down a certain road, you don't challenge your own beliefs.

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.

Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.

We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest.

There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.

Men who have been much taught, are apt to be deficient in the sense of present fact; they do not see, in the facts which they are called upon to deal with, what is really there, but what they have been taught to expect.

Prejudice locks the mind. Nothing can enter. Nothing true can escape.

For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Adults have pretty much made up their minds - they like you to the extent that you confirm what they already believe.

It's a law of our natures, especially when the political fit is on us, to applaud where we already approve, and deride where we don't.

People are going to believe what they want to believe.

Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.

How prone we are to come to the consideration of every question with heads and hearts pre-occupied! How prone to shrink from any opinion, however reasonable, if it be opposed to any, however unreasonable, of our own! How disposed are we to judge, in anger, those who call upon us to think, and encourage us to enquire! To question our prejudices seems nothing less than sacrilege; to break the chains of our ignorance, nothing short of impiety!

We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.

A lot of people are lazy when it comes to making up their own mind about something, you know? If you're labelled one way then they think thats how you are. It takes too much time to really look into things.

Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood.

It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.