Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power. Men wrongly complain of Experience; with great abuse they accuse her of leading them astray but they set Experience aside, turning from it with complaints as to our ignorance causing us to be carried away by vain and foolish desires to promise ourselves, in her name, things that are not in her power
 Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1478 – 1519). copy citation

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Author Leonardo da Vinci
Source The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
Topic ignorance experience
Date 1478 – 1519
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Jean Paul Richter in 1888
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5000/pg5000-images.html

Context

“Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occured in experience. 1152. Truth was the only daughter of Time. 1153. Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments. Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power. Men wrongly complain of Experience; with great abuse they accuse her of leading them astray but they set Experience aside, turning from it with complaints as to our ignorance causing us to be carried away by vain and foolish desires to promise ourselves, in her name, things that are not in her power; saying that she is fallacious. Men are unjust in complaining of innocent Experience, constantly accusing her of error and of false evidence. 1154. Instrumental or mechanical science is of all the noblest and the most useful, seeing that by means of this all animated bodies that have movement perform all their actions;” source