“They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.”
Source: Pebble in the Sky
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Isaac Asimov 303
American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston Uni… 1920–1992Related quotes

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Working the Program

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
“I don't want any promises, I won't have false hopes, I won't be romantic about myself.”
"Old Mortality" in Pale Horse (1939)
Context: I don't want any promises, I won't have false hopes, I won't be romantic about myself. I can't live in their world any longer, she told herself, listening to the voices back of her. Let them tell their stories to each other. Let them go on explaining how things happened. I don't care. At least I can know the truth about what happens to me, she assured herself silently, making a promise to herself, in her hopefulness, her ignorance.

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Responding to a press conference question as to whether he was a "card-carrying" member of the Black Muslims, as quoted in The New York Times (27 February 1964) http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4091EF7355D17738DDDAE0A94DA405B848AF1D3; also in Sports Illustrated (9 March 1964).
Context: I believe in Allah and in peace. I don't try to move into white neighborhoods. I don't want to marry a white woman. I was baptized when I was twelve, but I didn't know what I was doing. I'm not a Christian anymore. I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be... I'm free to be what I want.