Janet Frame Quotes

Some one has said that most of us don't think, we just occasionally rearrange our prejudices.

He thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.

Those who think their intellect will keep them from deception are already deceived.

Scientists are the easiest to fool. ... They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors-they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident.

But anyone who thinks themselves genuinely unbiased is bound to be taken in.

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.

In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.

A common fallacy: to imagine a measure will be easy because we have private motives for desiring it.

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

There are no such self-deceivers as those who think they reason when they only feel.

We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic.

When something looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Some people are aware of another sort of thinking which... leads to those simple ideas that are obvious only after they have been thought of... the term 'lateral thinking' has been coined to describe this orther sort of thinking; 'vertical thinking' is used to denote the conventional logical process.

It is an illusion to think that the matter can be resolved through words.

Every human being relies on and is bounded by his knowledge and experience to live. This is what we call “reality”. However, knowledge and experience are ambiguous, thus reality can become illusion. Is it not possible to think that, all human beings are living in their assumptions?

I don't want them to believe me, I just want them to think.

Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.

Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference.

It isn't safe to sit in judgment upon another person's illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

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.

Phony psychics like Uri Geller have had particular success in bamboozling scientists with ordinary stage magic, because only scientists are arrogant enough to think that they always observe with rigorous and objective scrutiny, and therefore could never be so fooled while ordinary mortals know perfectly well that good performers can always find a way to trick people.

People think that they see, but they don't.

By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed with them because, again, I don't care too much what other people think.

It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.