J. D. Vance Quotes

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.

The problem I have with making an intelligent statement is that some people then think it's not an isolated occurrence.

It's so funny because no matter what you say, fans only read and hear what they want.

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

Political thinking consists in deciding upon the conclusion first and then finding good arguments for it. An open mind is considered irresponsible.

In history, as in traveling, men usually see only what they already had in their own minds; and few learn much from history, who do not bring much with them to its study.

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

The longer you hold a belief, the less likely it is to be true.

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

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.

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.

When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects, we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered

… people reject the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views.

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

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Interviewers actively fool themselves, finding ways to learn from interviews even if there's actually nothing there to learn from.

I've always been intrigued by why people believe one thing over another.

As soon as you hear a proposition, the creative brain in humans assumes for the moment that it's true, and starts trying to find evidence. It's what computer scientists in the old days used to call 'Fifo:' first in, first out. The first piece of information that gets in has a privileged position, even if it's misinformation.

That's the way people are in general: they see everything negatively at first and then choose to ask questions.

The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

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

It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.

We can learn from history, but we can also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do.

You cannot observe people through an ideology. Your ideology observes for you.