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Error quotes

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“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia” - 1785

“QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1911

“The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.” Orson Scott Card, “Ender's Game” - 1985

“Chastisement for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last.” Sophocles, “Antigone” - c. 441 BC

“Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.” Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia” - 1785

“But science is a self-correcting enterprise. To be accepted, all new ideas must survive rigorous standards of evidence.” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“No mans error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.” Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” - 1651

“The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.” Charlotte Brontë, “Jane Eyre” - 16 October 1847

“A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that believe in truth.” Thomas Carlyle, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History” - 1841

“All men are liable to error, and most men are in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.” John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” - 1689

“To err is common To all men, but the man who having erred Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.” Sophocles, “Antigone” - c. 441 BC

“It is, therefore, quite correct to say that the senses do not err, not because they always judge correctly, but because they do not judge at all.” Immanuel Kant, “Critique of Pure Reason” - 1791

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.” Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia” - 1785

“What's done can't be undone, but at least you can keep it from happening again.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“But when erring reason proposes something as being commanded by God, then to scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God.” Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica” - 1274

“I may hope, therefore, that my chance of escaping serious errors is as good as that of anyone else, who might have been persuaded to undertake the somewhat perilous enterprise in which I find myself engaged.” Thomas Henry Huxley, “The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century” - 1887

“Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge?” Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” - 1651

Related topics

truth wisdom reason power judgement passion God ignorance past words age senses danger wrong improvement law human interest government science

Related authors

Thomas Jefferson (3)
Sophocles (2)
Thomas Hobbes (2)
Charlotte Brontë (1)
Thomas Carlyle (1)
John Locke (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)
Immanuel Kant (1)
Carl Sagan (1)
Anne Frank (1)
Thomas Aquinas (1)
Orson Scott Card (1)
Thomas Henry Huxley (1)

Related sources

Notes on the State of Virginia (3)
Antigone (2)
Leviathan (2)
Jane Eyre (1)
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1)
The Devil's Dictionary (1)
Critique of Pure Reason (1)
Cosmos (1)
The Diary of a Young Girl (1)
Summa Theologica (1)
Ender's Game (1)
The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (1)