The existence of life beyond Earth is an ancient human concern. Over the years, however, attempts to understand humanity's place in the cosmos through science often got hijacked by wishful thinking or fabricated tales.

The idea that humans will always have a unique ability beyond the reach of non-conscious algorithms is just wishful thinking.

Where there is life there is wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.

Suffice it to say that our over-reliance on testing is based largely on habit, wishful thinking, and leaps of faith.

The church is in the hope business. We, of all people, ought to be known most for our hope because our hope is founded on something deeper than human ability or wishful thinking.

Many of us like to think of financial economics as a science, but complex events like the financial crisis suggest that this conceit may be more wishful thinking than reality.

Any real belief in death is just wishful thinking.

The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking is one thing, and reality another.

I mean, I think it's a two-way relationship: I think you should not have too much faith in your own rationality. You should not have too much faith in the rationality of, you know, anybody else either. We all learn together about the way the world is, and I think it's a sort of antidote to wishful thinking of all kinds.

To me, you can be young in your mind, in the way you think, but if your body don't come with that, then it's wishful thinking.

If you want to send a manuscript, send it to an agent. And send a letter first, asking permission. Launch it into the real world of cold-blooded commercial response, not into the fantasyland of wishful thinking, cowardice and surrender to Resistance.

I am encouraged that there's going to be much better dialogue between the federal government and the state of Arizona. I mean, I hope that's not wishful thinking.

The paradoxical War on Terror is based on a kind of willed stupidity; the willed stupidity of wishful thinking. Only the logic of dreamwork can suture 'War' with 'Terror' in this way, since terrorists were, by classical definition, those without 'legitimate authority' to wage war.

As foreign attacks increase, it's easy to treat them like bad weather happening somewhere else. It's what we read over breakfast. But when that storm hits your shores, remember this: Wishful thinking never saved a single life. The truth, however, has.

Hope is much more than wishful thinking. Hope is a way of moving through the world.

Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.