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Fiction Quotes

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Fiction Quotes

“Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.”

Stories Shows Seems Belief Easy Fiction Study Shapes Intellectual Evidence Argument Moved Critical Nonfiction Skeptical Shields

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.”

Writing Mind Humans Facts Stories Shows Seems Able Lasts Values Belief Results Attitude Fiction Study Psychology Effects Serious Evidence Argument Decades Human Mind Persuasive

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.”

Believe Doe Pain Belief Effort Fiction Depends Sight Disappear Anxious Spares Promoting Unwilling Oligarchy No Pain Plain Sight

Author:Michael Lind

“When a story has gone the grand circuit, and travels back to us uncontradicted, we may reasonably begin to relax in our belief of it. If nobody questions it, it is manifestly a fiction; if it passes current, it is almost sure to be a counterfeit. The course of truth never yet ran smooth.”

Ifs May Stories Courses Belief Fiction Gone Currents Ran Relax Smooth Circuits Counterfeit

Author:Samuel Laman Blanchard

“As success converts treason into legitimacy, so belief converts fiction into fact, and "nothing is but what is not.”

Facts Belief Fiction Treason Legitimacy

Author:Samuel Laman Blanchard

“I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.”

Source: Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition

“Homo religiosus invents religious symbols, which he venerates and worships to save him from facing the finality of his death and dissolution. He devises paradise fictions to provide succor and support... In acts of supreme self-deception, at various times and in various places he has been willing to profess belief in the most incredible myths because of what they have promised him.”

Has Beens Self Belief Religious Fiction Support Atheism Willing Worship Incredibles Various Positive Atheism Myth Supreme Symbols Deception Paradise Self Deception Dissolution Finality

Author:Paul Kurtz

“[T]he one indispensable ingredient of science fiction [is] a belief in a world being changed by man's intellect, a conviction that what was being written could really happen.”

Men World Happens Belief Fiction Written Changed Science Fiction Conviction Intellect Ingredients Indispensable

Author:James Gunn

“Contrary to common belief, Christian fiction did not begin with Catherine Marshall, Janette Oke, or Frank Peretti.”

Christian Belief Common Fiction Contrary Frank

Author:Randy Alcorn

“The prologues are over. It is a question, now, Of final belief. So, say that final belief Must be in a fiction. It is time to choose.”

Belief Fiction Finals Over It Prologue

Author:Wallace Stevens

“Fantasy involves that which general opinion regards as impossible; science fiction involves that which general opinion regards as possible under the right circumstances. This is in essence a judgment call, since what is possible and what is not cannot be objectively known but is, rather, a subjective belief on the part of the reader.”

Belief Fiction Known Opinion Fantasy Impossible Reader Circumstances Judgment Essence Regard Science Fiction Subjective

Book:Pandemonium

Source: Pandemonium

“We create truths by describing, or by re-describing , our beliefs and observations. Our task, and the task of every artist and scientist, is to re-describe our inherited assumptions and invented fictions in order to create new paradigms for the future.”

Artist Order Belief Fiction Tasks Scientist Observation Assumption Paradigm Describing

Book:A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre

Source: A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre

“I'm very interested in film making. It's telling a story, fiction or non-fiction. I have been filmed quite a lot. Contrary to popular belief, filming isn't glamorous. It can be wearingly repetitious, as the same shot is taken over and over again.”

Has Beens Stories Film Belief Fiction Taken Shots Contrary Non Fiction Glamorous Contrary To Popular Belief

Author:Stephen Hawking