Errors quotes

Errors

1.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Errors quotes (page 8 of 92)

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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
Errors

"The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal."

Mistake Ignorance Errors
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Benjamin Franklin Inventor, Statesman, Author
Errors

"If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error."

Men Wish Errors
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Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet
Errors

"The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people ask you, when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear, 'How do you know it is truth, and not an error of your own?' We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake."

Mistake Truth Errors
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb Author, Statistician
Errors

"You want to favor systems that benefit from error, disorder, variability and things like that. You want to favor these systems and unfortunately, when - there's something I call the Soviet Illusion. The more the government becomes intrusive, the more things have to follow a script, and it can't handle this kind of system."

Government Errors Benefits
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Francis Bacon Philosopher, Statesman
Errors

"Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out."

Dog Truth Errors
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Thomas Huxley Biologist, Anthropologist
Errors

"It sounds paradoxical to say the attainment of scientific truth has been effected, to a great extent, by the help of scientific errors."

Sound Helping Errors
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Stephen Jay Gould Paleontologist, Evolutionary Biologist
Errors

"Complex organisms cannot be construed as the sum of their genes, nor do genes alone build particular items of anatomy or behavior by themselves. Most genes influence several aspects of anatomy and behavior as they operate through complex interactions with other genes and their products, and with environmental factors both within and outside the developing organism. We fall into a deep error, not just a harmful oversimplification, when we speak of genes "for" particular items of anatomy or behavior."

Fall Errors Interaction With Others
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Mao Zedong Politician, Revolutionary
Errors

"Those experienced in work must take up the study of theory and must read seriously; only then will they be able to systematize and synthesize their experience and raise it to the level of theory, only then will they not mistake their partial experience for universal truth and not commit empiricist errors."

Mistake Levels Errors
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Isaac Newton Mathematician, Physicist, Astronomer
Errors

"My principal method for defeating error and heresy is by establishing the truth. One purposes to fill a bushel with tares, but if I can fill it first with wheat, I may defy his attempts."

May Purpose Errors
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George Washington Military Leader, Politician
Errors

"We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience."

Past Errors 4th Of July
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John Ruskin Art Critic, Writer
Errors

"All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be effort, and the law of human judgment, mercy."

Life Mistake Errors
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C. S. Lewis Writer, Scholar
Errors

"Every uncorrected error and unrepented sin is, in its own right, a fountain of fresh error and fresh sin flowing on to the end of time."

Time Errors Sin
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C. S. Lewis Writer, Scholar
Errors

"And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another."

Cutting Race Errors
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