Flannery O'Connor Quotes

Wherever there is a conscious mind, there is a point of view.

Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.

Facts are many, but the truth is one.

We all have mental models: the lens through which we see the world that drive our responses to everything we experience. Being aware of your mental models is key to being objective.

Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

There are only two types of people in the world. There are the people who understand that this is a matrix, and then there are the people who buy it lock, stock and barrel.

It’s critical that we know what we believe, no matter what we feel...that we know what is true, no matter what we see.

You can only see what you believe—nothing else is possible.

We have a right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right.

We do not see the lens through which we look.

Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds. -Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (1867-1957)

No amount of effort could have stopped that, because our points of view - the way we perceive things - are inextricably linked to our beliefs, ... ,our beliefs color what we see.

Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception - what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms - what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe.

Ideology is like breath: you never smell your own.

What you see determines how you interpret the world, which in turn influences what you expect of the world and how you expect the story of your life to unfold.

As we are, so we see.

What you see is evidence of what you believe.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Different people, in good faith, can look at the same fact and interpret it differently. But that's where an interesting conversation begins.

I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it.

We need discernment in what we see and what we hear and what we believe.

There are many levels of truth.