Brian Greene Quotes

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

We hew and saw and plane facts to make them dovetail with our prejudices, so that they become mere ornaments with which to parade our objectivity.

It is in the nature of human beings to bend information in the direction of desired conclusions.

What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.

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.

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

The average man believes a thing first, and then searches for proof to bolster his opinion

We see what we want to believe.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.

The key to all fanatical beliefs is that they are self-confirming....(some beliefs are) fanatical not because they are "false", but because they are expressed in such a way that they can never be shown to be false.

People see what they want to see when they need to.

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

All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want.

The first step to believing something is true is wanting to believe it is true... or being afraid it is.

People believe what they want to believe.

It is not impossible to think that the minds of philosophers sometimes act like those of other mortals, and that, having once been determined by diverse circumstances to adopt certain views, they then look for and naturally find reasons to justify these views.

In intelligence you can justify almost anything you want to if you go about it with enough zeal and effort which is what happened.

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

Men quickly find a theory that adapts itself to their desires.

Progressives and conservatives alike lean, unconsciously, towards particular conclusions, and then scrabble around to rationalise those conclusions to themselves.

From time to time, everyone distorts. We all tend to believe what supports our side of the question and doubt what weakens it. When we are under stress, we tend to believe what we need to believe.

One theme we look at is what psychologists call motivated reasoning; lay people refer to it as self-deception, wishful thinking or rationalization. The list of creative ways people have for reaching conclusions they wish to reach and dismissing conclusions they find threatening is amazing. We've shown that it goes down even to the level of visual perception: You literally see what you want to see.

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.

Men who have excessive faith in their theories ... make poor observations, because they choose among the results of their experiments only what suits their object, neglecting whatever is unrelated to it and carefully setting aside everything which might tend toward the idea they wish to combat