An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON FACTS
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918, American historian)
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams (1735-1826, American President (2nd))
It is not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion
Norman Angell (1872-1967, British writer, pacifist)
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, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)
Facts in books, statistics in encyclopedias, the ability to use them in men's heads.
Fogg Brackell
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)
Facts can't be recounted, much less twice over, and far less still by different persons. I've already drummed that thoroughly into your head. What happens is that your wretched memory remembers the words and forgets what's behind them.
Augusto Roa Bastos (1917-, Paraguayan novelist)
The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.
Walter Benjamin (1982-1940, German critic, philosopher)
Many a good story has been ruined by over verification.
James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872, British-born American journalist)
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 (1813-1878, French physiologist)
People can refute your facts, but never your feelings.
Sharon Anthony Bower (American author)
Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
I grow daily to honor facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing -- a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
What are your historical facts; still more your biographical? Wilt thou know a man by stringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest facts?
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.
Bliss Carman (1861-1929, Canadian poet)
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 trainer, author, "How to Win Friends and Influence People")
The best current evidence is that media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers groceries causes change in our nutrition.
Richard Clark
Now, what I want is, facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!
Charles Dickens (1812-1870, British novelist)
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930, British author, "Sherlock Holmes")
There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930, British author, "Sherlock Holmes")
Facts are the most important thing in business. Study facts and do more than is expected of you.
Frederick Hudson Ecker (American business executive)
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
George Eliot (1819-1880, British novelist)
Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other; given the upper, to find the under side.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
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 (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
The facts: nothing matters but the facts: worship of the facts leads to everything, to happiness first of all and then to wealth.
Edmond and Jules De Goncourt (1822-1896, French writers)
Facts and truth really don't have much to do with each other.
William Faulkner (1897-1962, American novelist)
To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.
Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965, Austrian-born American law teacher, judge)
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get 'em, get 'em right, or they will get you wrong.
Thomas Fuller (1608-1661, British clergyman, author)
Anyone who knows a strange fact shares in its singularity.
Jean Genet (1910-1986, French playwright, novelist)
A concept is stronger than a fact.
Charlotte P. Gillman (1860-1935, American feminist and writer)
General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830, British essayist)
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called "facts." They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or two that they lead after them into decent company like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant fancy? I allow no "facts" at this table.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894, American author, wit, poet)
Facts are ventriloquists' dummies. Sitting on a wise man's knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963, British author)
Facts don't cease to exist because they are ignored.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963, British author)
A world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words.
Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895, British biologist, educator)
Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895, British biologist, educator)
Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895, British biologist, educator)
I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it. It's the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.
Lee Iacocca (1924-, American businessman, former CEO of Chrysler)
Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
Anything that enlarges the sphere of human powers and shows man he can do what he thought he could not do is valuable.
Ben Johnson (1572-1637, British clergyman, poet, painter)
One precedent creates another and they soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was a fact, today is doctrine.
Junius (1769-1771, Anonymous British letter writer)
Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964, Indian nationalist, statesman)
The ultimate umpire of all things in life is -- fact.
Agnes C. Laut (1871-1936, Canadian journalist, author)
One of the most untruthful things possible, you know, is a collection of facts, because they can be made to appear so many different ways.
Karl A. Menninger (1893-1990, American psychiatrist)
There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, German philosopher)
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, German philosopher)
A little axe, when well used, brings lots of food.
New Zealander Proverb
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 (1928-, American novelist, short-story writer)
A fact is like a sack -- it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936, Italian author, playwright)
A crooked cornstalk can have a straight ear.
American Proverb (Sayings of American origin)
Anguish is our worst advisor.
Chilean Proverb
A mind can make a heaven out of hell, or a hell out of heaven.
Costa Rican Proverb
A lie runs until truth catches up to it.
Cuban Proverb (Sayings of Cuban origin)
The sky is not less blue because the blind man does not see it.
Danish Proverb (Sayings of Danish origin)
A man's will can be his paradise, but it can also be his hell.
Icelandic Proverb (Sayings of Icelandic origin)
An imaginary sickness is worse than a real one.
Yiddish Proverb (Sayings of Yiddish origin)
Facts have a cruel way of substituting themselves for fancies. There is nothing more remorseless, just as there is nothing more helpful, than truth.
William C. Redfield
The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.
Carl Rogers (1902-1987, American psychotherapist)
I might show facts as plain as day: but, since your eyes are blind, you'd say, "Where? What?" and turn away.
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894, British poet, lyricist)
Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.
Philip Roth (1933-, American novelist)
Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970, British philosopher, mathematician, essayist)
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 author)
Comment is free but facts are sacred.
Charles Prestwich Scott (1846-1932, British newspaper editor)
The fact, if they are there, speak for themselves.
David Seabury (American doctor, author)
It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.
Rod Serling (1924-1975, American television script-writer)
We should keep so close to facts that we never have to remember the second time what we said the first time.
Marion F. Smith
Oh, don't tell me of facts -- I never believe facts: you know Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845, British writer, clergyman)
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Mark Twain (1835-1910, American humorist, writer)
A man has two names: the one he is born with and the one that he makes for himself.
Author Unknown
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.
Author Unknown
It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.
Author Unknown
Never forget the facts are important but it's the opinion of the facts that causes comment.
Author Unknown
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-, American novelist, critic)
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-, American novelist, critic)
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