Willfully Blind Quotes & Sayings

Who is so deaf or so blind as is he that willfully will neither hear nor see? — John Heywood

We teach aspirational ethics. What I teach my students is, You're born heroic. I go into these animal studies, and heroism is actually in our nature. What you have to do is make sure that the system doesn't change you, that our educational system doesn't teach you to be willfully blind and to forget your aspirations, because that's the default position. — Marc Edwards

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion mixes explosively with (and gives strong sanction to) both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today. Without a doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East. Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different now. 'All is changed, changed utterly. — Richard Dawkins

That the utopia I thought the online world created, where people don't have to be ashamed of what they love and could connect with each other regardless of what they looked like, was really a place where people could steep themselves in their own worldview until they became willfully blind to everyone else's. I — Felicia Day

You're too sympathetic, the General said. You didn't see the danger in the major because he was fat and you took pity on him for that. Now the evidence shows that you've been willfully blind to the fact that Sonny is not only a left-wing radical but potentially a communist sleeper agent. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

Almost no one will accept responsibility for his or her role in precipitating a crisis: not leveraged speculators, not willfully blind leaders of financial institutions, and certainly not regulators, government officials, ratings agencies or politicians. — Seth Klarman

History is never invisible, finally, though some people seem to work very hard to be willfully blind. — Garth Greenwell

He was trying to prove to a willfully deaf and blind enemy that he was interesting to hear and see. — Kurt Vonnegut

The biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to. — Margaret Heffernan

There in the hospital Billy was having an adventure very common among people without power in times of war: he was trying to prove to a willfully deaf and blind enemy that he is interesting to hear and see. — Kurt Vonnegut

To generations of the willfully blind, true beauty can remain unseen in plain sight, but beauty sooner or later asserts itself - always, always, always - and is at last recognized, because there's so damn little of it. — Dean Koontz

Across industries and countries, there's a strong inverse correlation between performance and job security. Actors and directors are fired at the end of each film, so they have to deliver every time. Junior professors are fired by default after a few years unless the university chooses to grant them tenure. Professional athletes know they'll be pulled if they play badly for just a couple games. At the other end of the scale (at least in the US) are auto workers, New York City schoolteachers, and civil servants, who are all nearly impossible to fire. The trend is so clear that you'd have to be willfully blind not to see it. — Paul Graham