There are no facts, only interpretations.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called “facts”. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Facts quite often, I fear to confess, like lawyers, put me to sleep at noon. Not theories, however. Theories are invigorating and tonic. Give me an ounce of fact and I will produce you a ton of theory by tea this afternoon. That is, after all, my job.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
I never believe facts; Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into the world of limits. You can free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
He that has “a spirit of detail” will do better in life than many who figured beyond him in the university.—Such an one is minute and particular.—He adjusts trifles; and these trifles compose most of the business and happiness of life.—Great events happen seldom, and affect few; trifles happen every moment to everybody; and though one occurrence of them adds little to the happiness or misery of life, yet the sum total of their continual repetition is of the highest consequence.
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852) American Statesman, Lawyer
One of the most untruthful things possible, you know, is a collection of facts, because they can be made to appear so many different ways.
—Karl Menninger (1893–1990) American Psychiatrist
It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
—Gore Vidal (1925–48) American Novelist, Essayist, Journalist, Playwright
Facts are ventriloquist’s dummies. Sitting on a wise man’s knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
But I hate things all fiction… there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric—and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Facts are to the mind what food is to the body. On the due digestion of the former depend the strength and wisdom of the one, just as vigor and health depend on the other. The wisest in council, the ablest in debate, and the most agreeable companion in the commerce of human life, is that man who has assimilated to his understanding the greatest number of facts.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other; given the upper, to find the under side.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
I’m not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called “scientific” mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.
—Cynthia Ozick (b.1928) American Novelist, Short-story Writer, Essayist
I deal with the obvious. I present, reiterate and glorify the obvious—because the obvious is what people need to be told.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
Facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Get your facts first, and then you can distort ’em as you please.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I grow daily to honor facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing—a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
Never forget the facts are important but it’s the opinion of the facts that causes comment.
—Unknown
It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.
—Unknown
General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Now, what I want is, facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
The fastidious are unfortunate; nothing satisfies them.
—Jean de La Fontaine (1621–95) French Poet, Short Story Writer
No fact is so simple that it is not harder to believe than to doubt at the first presentation. Equally, there is nothing so mighty or so marvelous that the wonder it evokes does not tend to diminish in time.
—Lucretius (c.99–55 BCE) Roman Epicurean Poet, Philosopher
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
Measure three times before you cut once.
—Common Proverb
The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.
—Carl Rogers (1902–1987) American Psychologist
I often wish that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.
—Unknown
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Facts are generally overesteemed. For most practical purposes, a thing is what men think it is. When they judged the earth flat, it was flat. As long as men thought slavery tolerable, tolerable it was. We live down here among shadows, shadows among shadows.
—John Updike (1932–2009) American Novelist, Poet, Short-Story Writer
One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite—that particular peach is but a detail.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
—Henry Adams (1838–1918) American Historian, Man of Letters
Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
A fact is like a sack—it won’t stand up if it’s empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) Italian Dramatist, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Author
Creative thinking will improve as we relate the new fact to the old and all facts to each other.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
A world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.
—Charles Simmons (1924–2017) American Editor, Novelist
There comes a time when you’ve got to say, “Let’s get off our asses and go …” I have always found that if I move with 75 percent or more of the facts I usually never regret it. It’s the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.
—Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American Businessperson
Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
It is not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion.
—Norman Angell (1872–1967) English Economist, Writer, Pacifist
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher