Vernor Vinge Quotes

No amount of belief makes something a fact.

Everyone has been a witness sometime - It doesn't change it if you don't believe.

Fact is based upon vulgar matter.

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to believe, but look only and surely at what are the facts.

How can you expect me to believe that?""whether you believe it or not does not change the nature of truth

If you tell me that the sky is red, I will look up.

You must see first before you can believe.

Once we thought, journalists and readers alike, that if we put together enough 'facts' and gave them a fast stir, we would come up with something that, at least by the standards of short-order cooks, could be called the truth.

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.

Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality. After all, if it's there it doesn't require your belief- and if it's not there why should you believe in it?

It’s critical that we know what we believe, no matter what we feel...that we know what is true, no matter what we see.

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

Seeing is not believing - it is only seeing.

But the truth doesn't need to be known, or believed, to be true.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

See what you see, not what someone tells you that you see

Truth does not demand belief.

The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.

The thing about the truth is that it exists outside of belief. Even if nobody believes it, that thing is still true.

I care what is actually true, even more than what I hope is true.

Belief made no difference to the truth.

Our belief or disbelief of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing.