Quotes About Conviction

We fall out of truth-default mode only when the case against our initial assumption becomes definitive. We do not behave, in other words, like sober-minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.

The more you invest in a set of beliefs - the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction - the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don't give up. You double down. As Festinger recalled in an oral history, One of the things we expected would happen would be that, after the disconfirmation of this prediction...they would...have to discard their belief, but to the extent that they were committed to it, this would be difficult to do.

the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction—the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don't give up. You double down.

What did Festinger make of all this? The more you invest in a set of beliefs—the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction—the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don't give up. You double down.

point. You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don't have enough doubts about them.

doubts trigger disbelief only when you can't explain them away.

I believed in you always until I couldn't anymore. Isn't that an almost perfect statement of default to truth?

The right question is: were there enough red flags to push you over the threshold of belief? If there weren't, then by defaulting to truth you were only being human.

more you invest in a set of beliefs—the greater the sacrifice you make in the service of that conviction—the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don't give up. You double down.

You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don't have enough doubts about them.

Você acredita em alguém não porque não tenha dúvidas a respeito da pessoa. A crença não é a ausência de dúvida. Você acredita em alguém porque não tem dúvidas suficientes a respeito.

Some people had doubts about Sandusky. But remember, doubts are not the enemy of belief; they are its companion.

Wolf and Bruhn had to convince the medical establishment to think about health and heart attacks in an entirely new way: they had to get them to realize that they wouldn't be

Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don't have enough doubts about them.

I'd rather have somebody who is real stupid but did something—even if it's wrong he did something—than have somebody who'd vacillate and do nothing." That's what LeMay values.

conviction that we know others better than they know us—and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)—leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged unfairly.

stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.

The conviction that we know others better than they know us—and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)—leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged

But who could agree with someone who was so certain you were going to be sober the day after to-morrow?

Most of the great universities of the West were founded with the conviction that theology is the queen of the disciplines. (...) Now, in the latter part of the twentieth century, that tradition has almost disappeared.

Unbelief in the supernatural is a belief in its own nature.

Just as faith without works is dead, so also works without faith.

Faith is to believe in something when common sense tells you not to and situation surrounding you says otherwise.

If you won't trust yourself, nobody else will.