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Quotes about facts

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Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.
Henri Poincaré1854–1912
- Science
Scientists believe there is a hierarchy of facts and that among them may be made a judicious choice. They are right, since otherwise there would be no science…
Henri Poincaré1854–1912The Value of Science (1905)
- Science
The Scientist must set in order. Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
Henri Poincaré1854–1912Science and Hypothesis (1901), Ch. IX: Hypotheses in Physics, Tr. George Bruce Halsted (1913)
- Science
A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004Television address (4 March 1987) on Iran-Contra affair
- Truth & Lies
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
The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.
John Ruskin1819–1900The Stones of Venice (1853), Volume III
- Science
The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts: the less you know the hotter you get.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Attributed to Russell in Distilled Wisdom (1964) by Alfred Armand Montapert, p. 145
- Anger
Historical facts, many of them, have an intrinsic value, a profound interest on their own account, which makes them worthy of study, quite apart from any possibility of linking them together by means of causal laws.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970On History (1904)
- History
A 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)
- Philosophy
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
Saki1870–1916The Square Egg (1924), “Clovis on the Alleged Romance of Business”
Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.
George Santayana1863–1952The Sense of Beauty (1896), Pt. III, Form; § 30: “The average modified in the direction of pleasure.”, p. 125
- Knowledge
Facts do not “speak for themselves.” They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theory or visions are mere isolated curiosities.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930A Conflict of Visions (1987), Ch. 1: The Role of Vision
Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.
Herbert Spencer1820–1903The Development Hypothesis (1852)
- Science
Politeness does not interfere with facts, politeness is just another fact.
Gertrude Stein1874–1946Paris France (1940)
The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960Fooled by Randomness (2001)
- Knowledge