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
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. … But so long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
I might show facts as plain as day: but, since your eyes are blind, you’d say, Where? What? and turn away.
—Christina Rossetti (1830–94) English Poet, Hymn Writer
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
If you get all the facts, your judgment can be right; if you don’t get all the facts, it can’t be right.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood.
—Tryon Edwards (1809–94) American Theologian, Author
Comment is free but facts are sacred.
—C. P. Scott (1846–1932) British Journalist, Editor, Politician
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
Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
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
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
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
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
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
If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not. We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.
—John Henry Newman (1801–90) British Theologian, Poet
She always says, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away.
—Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) British Crime Writer
I have always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.
—Lily Tomlin (b.1939) American Comedy Actress
A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes.
—Claude Bernard (1813–78) French Physiologist
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
I hate facts. I always say the chief end of man is to form general propositions—adding that no general proposition is worth a damn.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
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
The fatal futility of Fact.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
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
Facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Satirist, Short Story Writer
Only feeble minds are paralyzed by facts.
—Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer
Trifles make perfection, but perfection itself is no trifle.
—Michelangelo (1475–1564) Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Poet, Engineer
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
The ultimate umpire of all things in life is—fact.
—Agnes Christina Laut (1871–1936) Canadian Writer, Journalist
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
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