Philip James Bailey Quotes

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

We do not find truth groveling through error.

Even if a fool lived with a wise man all his life, he would still not recognise the truth, like a wooden spoon cannot recognise the flavour of the soup.

To the ignorant, even the words of wise seem foolishness.

Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

Knowledge is ancient error reflecting on its youth.

Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?

He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place.

Well isn’t that one thing you’re all the more wise for? Age has taught you something. It seems to me that you know the big secret. That nobody knows what’s going on

To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.

Fools usually know best that which the wise despair of ever comprehending.

The errors of a wise man are literally more instructive than the truths of a fool. The wise man travels in lofty, far-seeing regions; the fool in low-lying, high-fenced lanes; retracing the footsteps of the former, to discover where he diviated, whole provinces of the universe are laid open to us; in the path of the latter, granting even that he has not deviated at all, little is laid open to us but two wheel-ruts and two hedges.

Error, when she retraces her steps, has farther to go before she can arrive at truth than ignorance.

Knowledge being to be had only of visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is not true.

Error is worse than ignorance.

The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise.

Truth burns up error.

Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.

...a truth you don't understand is more dangerous than a lie.

Ignorance and error are necessary to life, like bread and water.