Dan Brown Quotes

Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or denied.

Facts - behind them lies the whole fabric of deductive truth.

The result is - document destruction - we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.

Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

The deductive method is the mode of using knowledge, and the inductive method the mode of acquiring it.

We need proof in our society.

We may either proceed from principles to facts, or recede from facts to principles.

Nothing matters but the facts. Without them, the science of criminal investigation is nothing more than a guessing game.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The facts, if they are there, speak for themselves.

Rhetoric is cheap, evidence comes more dearly.

Don't leave inferences to be drawn when evidence can be presented.

I wish to propose for the reader's favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

The most obdurate incredulity may be shamed or silenced by facts.

My colleagues have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty lies in submitting to it, however it may jar against their inclinations.

You can’t have opinions unless you have information.

It is fortunate when disputed theories can be decided by undisputed facts.

People in general have no notion of the sort and amount of evidence often needed to prove the simplest matter of fact.

Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief, they demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but assume that their own needs none.

We must prove design before we can infer a designer.

… there must never be the least hesitation in giving up a position the moment it is shown to be untenable. It is not going too far to say that the greatness of a scientific investigator does not rest on the fact of his having never made a mistake, but rather on his readiness to admit that he has done so, whenever the contrary evidence is cogent enough.

One of the most admirable things about history is, that almost as a rule we get as much information out of what it does not say as we get out of what it does say.… history consists of two equal parts; one of these halves is statements of fact, the other half is inference, drawn from the facts. To the experienced student of history there are no difficulties about this; to him the half which is unwritten is as clearly and surely visible, by the help of scientific inference, as if it flashed and flamed in letters of fire before his eyes. When the practiced eye of the simple peasant sees the half of a frog projecting above the water, he unerringly infers the half of the frog which he does not see. To the expert student in our great science, history is a frog; half of it is submerged, but he knows it is there, and he knows the shape of it.

Don't confuse evidence with a conclusion.

If there is one thing that I take pride in, it is the fact that I never, ever make a charge without offering a substantial amount of support for it. You may ultimately end up not agreeing with me, but you will have to concede that I offered much evidence in support of my position, something that people frequently do not do.

Without facts you can't have truth.