Quintilian Quotes

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

So often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong,--at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body; andif a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for itI'll go to the world's end with him:MBut I hate disputes.

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.

The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf - a philosopher or servant, - but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.

A just thinker will allow full swing to his scepticism. I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.... We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.

In order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who approve and confirm our discoveries.

Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that some particular creed is the truth.

You cannot gather much truth by searching the fields; you must sink shafts.

Be not so bigoted to any custom as to worship it at the expense of truth.

We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward 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.

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?

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

Unless you have the courage to doubt you will never come to know the truth.

Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

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

A seeker of truth will never begin by discounting his opponent's statement as unworthy of trust.