James Harvey Robinson Quotations

In its amplest meaning History includes every trace and vestige of everything that man has done or thought since first he appeared on the earth.

Few of us take the pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions.

Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.

Partisanship is our great curse. We too readily assume that everything has two sides and that it is our duty to be on one or the other.

We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem, which is threatened.

Rationalizing is the self-exculpation which occurs when we feel ourselves, or our group, accused of misapprehension or error.

Speech gave man a unique power to lead a double life, he could say one thing and do another.

We find it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are.

Mere lack of success does not discredit a method, for there are many things that determine and perpetuate our sanctified ways of doing things besides their success in reaching their proposed ends.