“The theist is persuaded that while nothing that contradicts science is likely to be true, still nothing that stops with science can be the whole truth.”

Given a thimbleful of [dramatic] facts we rush to make generalizations as large as a tub.

Thwarted lives have the most character-conditioned hate

Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge.

Reason adapts impulses and beliefs into the real world; rationalization, on the other hand, adapts the concept of reality to the impulses and beliefs of the individual.

A new experience must be redacted into old categories. We cannot handle each event freshly in its own right. If we did so, of what use would past experience be?

Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and “patriotism” . . .

If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is.

Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.

Reasoning discovers the true cause of our acts, rationalization finds good reasons for justifying our acts.

The scientist, by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and more questions, never fewer.

An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.

It takes a major unhappiness, a prolonged and bitter experience, to drive us away from loyalties once formed.

Open-mindedness is considered to be a virtue. But, strictly speaking, it cannot occur.

Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge.

We cannot know the young child’s personality by studying his systems of interest, for his attention is as yet too labile, his reactions impulsive, and interests unformed.

Life is too short so we must generalize.

It also allows employees to recognize information in the marketplace that contradicts the customer pictures, either because the pictures were not entirely correct or because customers have changed.

My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to.

I oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science.

Nonetheless, GAO’s conclusion that employer sanctions had somehow caused employment discrimination was contradicted by GAO’s own Chief of Methodology, who criticized the GAO report.

If asked whether you love God, say nothing. This is because if you say, ‘I do not love God,’you are an unbeliever. If, on the other hand, you say, ‘I do love God,’ your actions contradict you.

When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.

I might make a specific choice for myself and then in the next episode the writers might write something that contradicts it.

I don’t know who I am or who I was. I know it less than ever. I do and I don’t identify myself with myself. Everything is totally contradictory, but maybe I have remained exactly as I was as a small boy of twelve.