"What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind."
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Errors quotes
Errors
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Errors quotes (page 33 of 92)
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"Truth as Circe. - Error has transformed animals into men; is truth perhaps capable of changing man back into an animal?"
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"It has therewith come to be recognized that the history of moral valuations is at the same time the history of an error, the error of responsibility, which is based upon the error of the freedom of will."
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"It is not to everyone's taste that truth should be pronounced pleasant. But at least let no one believe that error becomes truth when it is pronounced unpleasant."
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"We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we can live - by positing bodies, lines, planes, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content; without these articles of faith nobody could now endure life. But that does not prove them. Life is no argument. The conditions of life might include error."
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"Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths."
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"Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive."
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"Antithesis is the narrow gateway through which error most prefers to worm its way towards truth."
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"Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom."
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"And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact."
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"While I have made errors that I deeply regret, I have never, ever done so with the intent of subverting the law or of benefiting myself."
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"An enemy will train us in watchfulness; for if he be wary to seize on every error and trip us, we shall be more heedful to expose nothing, and this will drive us to prudence and thoughtfulness."
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"To avoid being drawn into error, keep a firm grip on the truth."
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"If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the pompous "wisdom" of the considered moral judgments of the present, we will find nothing but error."
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"Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth."
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"The errors of the observer come from the qualities of the human mind."
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"It is much easier to meet with error than to find truth; error is on the surface, and can be more easily met with; truth is hid in great depths, the way to seek does not appear to all the world."
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"A stated truth loses its grace, but a repeated error appears insipid and ridiculous."
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"Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?"
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"Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man."
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