Bias Quotes

What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.

The partisan when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

I can promise to be upright, but not to be without bias.[Ger., Aufrichtig zu sein kann ich versprechen; unparteiisch zu sein aber nicht.]

I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

When you don't understand something, you label it and condemn it" (94) - Danny Glover, "The Fundamental Things

She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed and made everything bend to it.

You can always tell when a man's well informed. His views are pretty much like your own.

There are instances when we are like horses, we psychologists, and grow restless: we see our own shadow wavering up and down before us. A psychologist must look away from himself in order to see anything at all.

We are always saying: Let the Law take its Course but what we really mean is: Let the Law take OUR Course.

It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin probably with a little bias towards our own sex, and upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle.

Records can be destroyed if they do not suit the prejudices of ruling cliques, lost if they become incomprehensible, distorted if a copyist wishes to impose a new meaning upon them, misunderstood if we lack the information to interpret them. The past is like a huge library, mostly fiction.

Prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same. Prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.

Interest which blinds some People, enlightens others.

All parties attempt to represent important things that have developed outside themselves as unimportant, and where they fail in this they assail those things all the more bitterly the more admirable they are.

It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always absolutely valueless.

Such is professional jealousy; a scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.

We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.

The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

...we all know that in all matters of mere opinion that [every] man is insane-just as insane as we are...we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours....All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

Justice is impartiality. Only strangers are impartial.

We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking.

The human mind is generally far more eager to praise or dispraise than it is to describe and define.

The learned and the studious of thought have no monopoly of wisdom. Their violence of direction in some degree disqualifies them to think truly.

He, who loves the bristle of bayonets, only sees in their glitter what beforehand he feels in his hand.

You don't ever ask a barber whether you need a haircut.

Men are not philosophers, but are rather very foolish children, who, by reason of their partiality, see everything in the most absurd manner, and are the victims at all times of the nearest object. There is even no philosopher who is a philosopher at all times. Our experience, our perception is conditioned by the need to acquire in parts and in succession, that is, with every truth a certain falsehood.

People have a vested interest in promoting one set of polices rather than finding out what the truth is.

Most men, even the most accomplished, are of limited faculties; every one sets a value on certain qualities in himself and others: these alone he is willing to favour, these alone will he have cultivated.

You cannot have a theory without principles. Principles is another name for prejudices.

Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.

I'm an American, first and foremost, and I'm very proud - I said, I've said to my beloved friend and colleague John McCain, a friend of 25 years, "John, I love you, but I'm not just going to vote for you on the basis of our affection or friendship." And I've said to Barack Obama, "I admire you. I'll give you all the advice I can. But I'm not going to vote for you just because you're black." We have to move beyond this.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

Pleasure and revengeHave ears more deaf than adders to the voiceOf any true decision.

In a real estate man's eye, the most expensive part of the city is where he has a house to sell

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America (is that it) has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists.

A teacher sent the following note home with a six-year-old boy 'He is too stupid to learn.' That boy was Thomas A. Edison.

If Jack's in love, he's no judge of Jill's beauty.

Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.

The miller believes that all the wheat grows so that his mill keeps running.

Ideological bigotry has become the norm on even our most prestigious campuses, where students can go for years without reading or hearing anything that challenges the left vision.

He who seeks truth should be of no country.

We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.

Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency.

We do what we can, and then make a theory to prove our performance the best.

Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.

If, while hurrying ostensibly to the temple of truth, we hand the reins over to our personal interests which look aside at very different guiding stars, for instance at the tastes and foibles of our contemporaries, at the established religion, but in particular at the hints and suggestions of those at the head of affairs, then how shall we ever reach the high, precipitous, bare rock whereon stands the temple of truth?

The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.

As a rule we perceive what we expect to perceive... The unexpected is usually not received at all.

Everyone is in love with his own ideas

It is a curious fact that of all the illusions that beset mankind none is quite so curious as that tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion.