Benjamin Rush Quotes

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

The great enemy of knowledge is not error, but inertness. All that we want is discussion; and then we are sure to do well, no matter what our blunders may be. One error conflicts with another, each destroys its opponent, and truth is evolved.

Debate is so much better than denial.

Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward truth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

The inquiry, knowledge, and belief of truth is the sovereign good of human nature.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt

Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don't know.

Happily I had very early learned the fallacy of building much on logic and verbal argument. Single sets of truths I knew to be as little conclusive in theology as in physics; and, in one as in the other, no theory to be worth anything, however plausibly backed up with Scripture texts or facts, which was not gathered bona fide from the analysis of all the attainable phenomena, and verified wherever possible by experiment.

There are truths to be discovered, but they are complex and many-sided; the best way to get to them is by engaging contrary ideas in a manner approximating dialogue.

'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'

Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.

Whatever the field under discussion, those who engage in debate must not only believe in each other's good faith, but also in their capacity to arrive at the truth.

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

Philosophy has to be enquiring; it can take nothing on faith, and its methods are based not on the blind acceptance of authority, but on establishing truths by reason and argument.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at?

Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.

But the need for conflict to expose prejudice and unclear reasoning, which is deeply embedded in my philosophy of science, has its origin in these debates.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance.