Quotes about facts
50 quotes from 40 people
The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960Fooled by Randomness (2001)Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.
Philip Roth1933–2018The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography (1988), opening letter to Nathan Zuckerman
Herbert Spencer1820–1903The Development Hypothesis (1852)
Werner Herzogborn 1942Minnesota declaration (1999)
George Santayana1863–1952The Sense of Beauty (1896), Pt. III, Form; § 30: “The average modified in the direction of pleasure.”, p. 125- WFWilliam Feather1889–1981Featherisms (2008)
Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.
Bernard Baruch1870–1965Deming Headlight (New Mexico), 6 January 1950, as cited in the Yale Book of Modern Proverbs and at There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Facts; Freakonomics blog post by Fred R. Shapiro (18 August 2011)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.1809–1894The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), Ch. 1
James Clerk Maxwell1831–1879Letter to Lewis Campbell (9 November 1851), in Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882), ch. 6, p. 159
Hannah Arendt1906–1975The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Ch. 11: The Totalitarian MovementI’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it.
Isaac Asimov1920–1992The Roving Mind (1983), p. 43A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914)“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”
In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense
