Quotations – Page 4

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Rank beliefs not according to their plausibility but by the harm they may cause.

Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement, Thought | Inquiry

Adam Grant

You’re entitled to your own opinion if you keep your opinion to yourself. If you decide to say it out loud, then I think you have a responsibility to be open to changing your mind in the face of better logic or stronger data. I think if you’re willing to voice an opinion, you should also be willing to change that opinion.

Author: Adam Grant | Subjects: Communication, Education | Scholarship, Personal Improvement, Thought | Inquiry

Galileo Galilei

The testimony of many has little more value than that of few, since the number of people who reason well in complicated matters is much smaller than that of those who reason badly. If reasoning were like hauling I should agree that several reasoners would be worth more than one, just as several horses can haul more sacks of grain than one can. But reasoning … [ Read more ]

Author: Galileo Galilei | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Thought | Inquiry

John Stuart Mill

So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more … [ Read more ]

William James

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

Author: William James | Subjects: Prejudice and Stereotype, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

Confucius

To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.

Author: Confucius | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Thought | Inquiry

Maria Popova, Hannah Arendt

…for where truth is absolute — a binary correspondence with reality: a premise either reflects reality or does not — meaning can be relative; it is shaped by one’s subjective interpretation, which is contingent upon beliefs and can be manipulated. Certainty lives in the realm of meaning, not of truth. […] All propaganda is in the business of manipulating certainty, but it can never manipulate … [ Read more ]

John Rawls

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions as truth is the first virtue of systems of thought.

Author: John Rawls | Subjects: Life & Society, Thought | Inquiry

Kevin Simler

If a brain anticipates that it will be rewarded for adopting a particular belief, it’s perfectly happy to do so, and doesn’t much care where the reward comes from — whether it’s pragmatic (better outcomes resulting from better decisions), social (better treatment from one’s peers), or some mix of the two.

Author: Kevin Simler | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

Steven Pinker

People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true.

Author: Steven Pinker | Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Thought | Inquiry

John Kenneth Galbraith

Faced with a choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The senses do not deceive; it is the judgment that deceives.

Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Concepts, Psychology | Behavior, Senses, Thought | Inquiry

John Dewey

Imagination is a vantage point of the future from which we can consider that which is lacking in the present.

Author: John Dewey | Subjects: Insight, Thought | Inquiry

Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, “The monk is our teacher.” But when you yourselves … [ Read more ]

Author: Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Religion, Thought | Inquiry

David Frum

Cynicism leads to acceptance of the previously unacceptable.

Roger Martin

We are not taught how to take advantage of a diverse thought—diverse in the sense that your thought conflicts with mine—rather than saying, “I have an idea. Yours is different than mine. I must make sure mine triumphs,” which is generally what we’re taught to do, to advocate for our point of view. We’re not going to get where we need to be on diversity … [ Read more ]

Author: Roger Martin | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Thought | Inquiry

Mortimer Adler

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.

Thucydides

The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.

Author: Thucydides | Subjects: Life & Society, Military | War | Peace, Thought | Inquiry

Charlotte Alter

For every two people who offered a rational and informed reason for why they were supporting Biden or Trump, there was another–almost always a Trump supporter–who offered an explanation divorced from reality. You could call this persistent style of untethered reasoning “unlogic.” Unlogic is not ignorance or stupidity; it is reason distorted by suspicion and misinformation, an Orwellian state of mind that arranges itself around … [ Read more ]

Author: Charlotte Alter | Source: Time | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Politics & Public Policy, Thought | Inquiry

Friedrich Nietzsche

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.