Good words

patterns, safe but unrewarding work, or values no longer believed in. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what many people fear most. It should be the opposite - Anon.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world - indeed it's the only thing that ever has - Margaret Mead.

The only thing I can be proud of, the greatest merit of my life, is that I was able to fundamentally alter my views - General Dimitri Volkogonov.

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. - Mohandas K. Gandhi

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there - Will Rogers

My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there - Anon.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education - Mark Twain.

The human understanding, once it has adopted opinions, either because they were already accepted and believed, or because it likes them, draws everything else to support and agree with them. And though it may meet a greater number and weight of contrary instances, it will, with great and harmful prejudice, ignore or condemn or exclude them by introducing some distinction, in order that the authority of those earlier assumptions may remain intact and unharmed - Sir Francis Bacon.

Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict we experience when we do something that is counter to our prior values, beliefs and feelings. To reduce our tension, we either change our beliefs or explain away our actions -The complete idiot's guide to Psychology.

Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more - Oscar Wilde.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all. -Dale Carnegie

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is - Anon.

Every child is an artist. The challenge is to remain an artist once he grows up - Pablo Picasso.
Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS). It's not hard to outsmart yourself.
Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions. -Oliver Wendell Holme.

Worry enough to anticipate trouble. But not so much as to bring it about.
Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. -William Jennings Bryan

We stubbornly fight to preserve our core beliefs, consciously and unconsciously, fair and foul, any way we can. We may ignore anomalous data or flat-out reject or exclude them from consideration. We may decide to hold them in abeyance, intending to deal with them "later." We may reinterpret and refashion them so that they no longer contradict our beliefs. We may use what knowledge we have of arguments that oppose the threat to construct a barrier to arguments that threaten our beliefs. If none of these mental tricks works and contradiction begins to penetrate our defenses, we may consent to shave just the periphery of a belief, thereby allowing its core to survive. In the unlikely instance in which we find ourselves forced to alter a core, we may depend upon its resilience and ability slowly to resume its original shape. In short, beliefs survive unless we are strongly motivated to examine contradictory data with as unbiased a mind as we can muster and are both able and willing to think deeply about it. - Steven M. Wise, Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals

Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told--and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. - Michael Crichton in The Lost World

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it--the life of that man is one long sin against mankind. - W. K. Clifford

What we recall is not what we actually experienced, but rather a reconstruction of what we experienced that is consistent with our current goals and our knowledge of the world. - Memory, Brain, and Belief When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in 7 ye