People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how people prefer comforting falsehoods over the uncomfortable truths that require critical thinking and accountability.
Brooks Atkinson's quote illustrates a common human tendency to embrace false beliefs as they offer an easy escape from the complexities of reality. It suggests that the avoidance of self-reflection and personal responsibility leads individuals to find solace in untruths, thereby inhibiting their ability to think critically and confront challenging ideas.
In practice
In a discussion on cognitive biases, this quote can serve as a reminder to critically evaluate our beliefs.
This nation was built by men who took risks-pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.
In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.
The true past departs not, no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die; but all is still here, and, recognized or not, lives and works through endless change.
Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity.
Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.
We do ourselves the most good doing something for others.
If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.
Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.
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