Quotes About Facts

Though no one can, I think, pretend that science does not concern itself, and properly concern itself, with facts which are not to all appearance illustrations of law, it is undoubtedly true that for those who desire to extract the greatest pleasure from science, a knowledge, however elementary, of the leading principles of investigation and the larger laws of nature, is the acquisition most to be desired.

Nature knows nothing but solid bodies; your science deals only with combinations of surfaces. And so nature constantly gives the lie to all your laws; can you name one to which no fact makes an exception?

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.

Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.

A historian cannot pick and choose his facts; he must deal with all the evidence.

The historian who puts his system first can hardly escape the heresy of preferring the facts which suit his system best.

It is another advantage of history, that it stores the mind with facts that apply to most subjects which occur in conversation among enlightened people. Whether morals, commerce, languages, polite literature be the object of discussion, it is history that must supply her large storehouse of proofs and illustrations.

Much has been said of the uses of history. They are no doubt many, yet do not apply equally to all: but it is quite sufficient to make it a study worth our pains and time, that it satisfies the desire which naturally arises in every intelligent mind to know the transactions of the country, of the globe in which he lives. Facts, as facts, interest our curiosity and engage our attention.

I am not a great theologian. I know there is a theological concept called invincible ignorance in which a strong enough faith binds you to any facts to the contrary.

Sometimes I think the urge to believe in our own worldview is our most powerful intellectual imperative, the mind's equivalent of feeding, fighting, and fornicating. People will eagerly twist facts into wholly unrecognizable shapes to fit them into existing suppositions. They'll ignore the obvious, select the irrelevant, and spin it all into a tapestry of self-deception, solely to justify an idea, no matter how impoverished or self-destructive.

It shows how to evaluate claims about facts (what might happen) and about values (what might matter).

Everything needs to be public. The legitimacy of the courts comes from the fact that they reason openly, on the record, based on facts.

The purpose of sealing the records was not to conceal them or to conceal the facts from the American people.

How, possibly, could the police have made the 'mistake' of charging the wrong man with the notorious Red Light Bandit crimes? That also is something that is fully revealed in the Pandora's Box of facts I have prepared.

You have to live in reality: not in what might happen but what is happening.

I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.

don't just negate the other person's claims; reframe. The facts unframed will not set you free. You cannot win just by stating the true facts and showing that they contradict your opponent's claims. Frames trump facts.

To inquire into what God has made is the main function of the imagination. It is aroused by facts, is nourished by facts; seeks for higher and yet higher laws in those facts; but refuses to regard science as the sole interpreter of nature, or the laws of science as the only region of discovery.

We answer: To inquire into what God has made is the main function of the imagination. It is aroused by facts, is nourished by facts; seeks for higher and yet higher laws in those facts; but refuses to regard science as the sole interpreter of nature, or the laws of science as the only region of discovery.

Don't mess with me. Attitudes are more important than facts.

If one harbors anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, though in a sense known to be true, are inadmissable.

The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban.

I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.