Baruch Spinoza Quotes

Even if all parts of a problem seem to fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, one has to remember that the probable need not necessarily be the truth and the truth not always probable.

Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

There is no original truth, only original error.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

Men are not necessarily more zealous for truth than they are for error.

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

Logic is a system whereby one may go wrong with confidence.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.

The first lesson about trusting your senses is: don't. Just because you believe something to be true, just because you know it's true, that doesn't mean it is true.

Sixty two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth. Idiots!

Certainty is no guarantor of correctness.

Reason and truth have rarely prevailed against demagoguery when the audience is too ignorant to tell the difference.

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

I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are imposters, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive.

Metaphysics may be, after all, only the art of being sure of something that is not so and logic only the art of going wrong with confidence.

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.

Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.

Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.

God forbid that Truth should be confined to Mathematical Demonstration!

An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.

But they were wrong. There was a reason.

Just because things are obvious doesn't mean they're true.

It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.