People most strenuously seek to evaluate performance by comparing themselves to others, not by using absolute standards.
Leon FestingerRead
A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People with strong beliefs are often resistant to change and dismissive of opposing viewpoints.
This quote by Leon Festinger emphasizes the stubborn nature of individuals who hold firm convictions. It suggests that such people are emotionally invested in their beliefs, making them unlikely to accept differing opinions, even when presented with logical arguments or evidence. Their unwillingness to consider alternative perspectives can lead to closed-mindedness and an inability to engage meaningfully in discussions that challenge their views.
Themes
ConvictionBeliefsChangeStubbornnessOpen-Mindedness
In practice
Example use cases
In a team meeting discussing project changes, one might use this quote to highlight the resistance some team members show towards new ideas.
More from Leon Festinger
All quotes →I prefer to rely on my memory. I have lived with that memory a long time, I am used to it, and if I have rearranged or distorted anything, surely that was done for my own benefit.
Leon FestingerRead
Similar quotes
If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and ... if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own I would refuse... I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist.
Ayn RandRead
The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men.
Jacob BronowskiRead
I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
Deep down, there is in the substance of the cosmos a primordial disposition, sui generis, for self-arrangement and self-involution.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.
DiogenesRead