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“No mans error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
“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
“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
“truth is only to be had by laying together many varieties of error.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
“The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.” Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
“Chastisement for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last.” Sophocles, Antigone
“QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
“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
“If you thought before that science was certain—well, that is just an error on your part.” Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law
“But science is a self-correcting enterprise. To be accepted, all new ideas must survive rigorous standards of evidence.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos
“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
“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
“The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“He who thinks little, errs much.” Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
“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
“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
“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism
“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
“When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“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
“Life is like a typographical error: we're constantly writing and rewriting things over each other.” Bret Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction
“The cautious seldom err.” Confucius, Analects
“Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge?” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
“Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.” Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
“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
“we are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.” Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law
“a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.” Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

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improvement truth progress science reason wisdom power judgement thinking government life ignorance God past passion humanity words senses forgiveness age

Related authors

Thomas Jefferson (3)
Sophocles (2)
Thomas Hobbes (2)
Richard Feynman (2)
Leonardo da Vinci (1)
Orson Scott Card (1)
Anne Frank (1)
Thomas Carlyle (1)
Carl Sagan (1)
John Locke (1)
Confucius (1)
Chuck Palahniuk (1)
Blaise Pascal (1)
Kurt Vonnegut (1)
Virginia Woolf (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)
Immanuel Kant (1)
Thomas Aquinas (1)
Bret Easton Ellis (1)
Thomas Henry Huxley (1)

Related sources

Notes on the State of Virginia (3)
The Character of Physical Law (2)
Antigone (2)
Leviathan (2)
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1)
The Diary of a Young Girl (1)
Cosmos (1)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1)
Critique of Pure Reason (1)
Analects (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (1)
Invisible Monsters (1)
Summa Theologica (1)
An Essay on Criticism (1)
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1)
The Rules of Attraction (1)
Player Piano (1)
Pensées (1)
Ender's Game (1)