Francis Bacon Quotes

We censored ourselves, willingly turning off our bullshit detectors and stilling the inner doubts that might have made us confront our mistakes. We abandoned the truism that arguments are true or false, irrespective of the race or the origins of the person who makes them. We began promoting arguments as true based on the gender, race, class, origins or backstory (oppression, discrimination, history of family violence) of the person uttering them. The value that we placed on diversity and inclusion led us by stages to jettison a care for truth itself.

If you shut the door to all errors, truth will be shut out.

We're awash in toxic memes right now. One of the most toxic, I think because it enables so many others, is the idea that truth doesn't matter, that truth is just relative, that there's no such thing as establishing the truth of anything. Your truth, my truth, we're all entitled to our own truths. That's pernicious, it's attractive to many people, and it is used to exploit people in all sorts of nefarious ways. The truth really does matter.

To avoid being drawn into error, keep a firm grip on the truth.

It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.

There is no error which hath not some appearance of probability resembling truth, which, when men who study to be singular find out, straining reason, they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling.

Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.

Persuade me or prove to me that I am mistaken in thought or deed, and I will gladly change - for it is the truth I seek, and the truth never harmed anyone. Harm comes from persisting in error and clinging to ignorance.

Why is it people who want the truth never believe it when they hear it?

Man's passion for truth is such that he will welcome the bitterest of all postulates so long as it strikes him as true.

Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether they swear by Soloviev or Kant or Marx. Only individuals seek the truth, and they shun those whose sole concern is not the truth.

Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them?

You have to be intellectually honest with yourself and others. In my judgment, all great investors are seekers of truth.

A man ceases to be an honest doubter the moment he refuses one way of getting at the truth because he does not like that way.

Every politician, every member of the clerical profession, ought to incur the reasonable suspicion of being an interested supporter of false doctrines, who becomes angry at opposition, and endeavors to cast an odium on free inquiry. Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

I seek the truth...it is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance that does harm.

I have one request: may I never use my reason against truth.

You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.

Why do I want to believe what I believe?... Science, to put it somewhat vulgarly, is a technique to keep yourself from kidding yourself.

Remember that [scientific thought] is the guide of action; that the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human progress itself.

I don't believe it is more important to move forward than to know the truth.

It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence.

The courage of the truth is the first condition of philosophic study.

If you will take my advice you will think little of Socrates, and a great deal more of truth.

A life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.