A Quote by Robert Nozick

Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth.

Robert Nozick

Quote Topics

Against Being Guarantees Listen Only Refusal Truth

Quote Author

Robert Nozick
American - Philosopher
November 16, 1938 - January 23, 2002

REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.

Ambrose Bierce

Listen, my father had written. Listen to hear if they are telling the truth or only part of the truth, for that is the lesson of history: that the victors tell the tale of their triumph in a manner to grant accolades to themselves and heap blame upon their rivals. Ask yourself if part of the story is being withheld by design or ignorance.

Kate Elliott

There will always be One against All, one person against all others. [This is so] not because One is terribly wise and All are terribly foolish, but because the process of thinking and researching, which finally yields truth, can only be accomplished by an individual person. In its singularity or duality, one human being seeks and finds – not the truth (Lessing) –, but some truth.

Hannah Arendt

Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend to only one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood.

John Stuart Mill

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings.

Dorothy Thompson

Sin is a refusal to grow, a refusal to love, a refusal to get committed, to be concerned, and to take risks.

Anthony de Mello

I've read in various media stories that my dad and I had demanded guarantees of playing time or that we didn't want to play at Florida. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was the exact opposite. We went in there and specifically said we weren't looking for guarantees.

Will Grier

I know there are no guarantees of winning and the only thing we have is to work on chances. If you want guarantees buy a washing machine.

Ralph Hasenhuttl

The fact that people of all colors have been ensnared by the drug war helps to preserve the system as a whole from serious critique, as it creates the impression - at a glance - that the war is being waged in an unbiased manner, even when nothing could be further from the truth.

Michelle Alexander

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings...Fear [False Evidence Appearing Real] grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light.

Dorothy Thompson

The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.

Sidney Hook

The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation.

Sam Harris

When I came to the last line of 'Car Crash While Hitchhiking,' I read it as a pitiless statement of indifference: a refusal to warn the family of their impending collision, a refusal to help when miraculously spared, a refusal to act on the empathy hiding behind the story's language.

Anthony Marra

Therefore, faithful Christian, seek the truth, listen to the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, tell the truth, learn the truth, defend the truth even to death.

Jan Hus

The key to being a good interviewer is to listen, no matter how heinous the act that person has committed, you have to listen to them and ask the right questions to get the truth out.