Terry Pratchett Quotes

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

You can never trust what you read.

Wikipedia gets a lot of things wrong.

If you believe everything you read, better not read.

An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious—just dead wrong.

I have learned that it is just as well to avoid even the appearance of something which you prefer not to have published as a fact! So many things are published as facts in any case which have no foundation in them whatsoever, that I don't suppose it really matters! For fair minded people usually wait until they verify a statement before they believe it, and those who believe it without verification are the ones who want to believe it!

I have heard that my Wikipedia entry is completely incorrect, but then again, so is everyone else's. I haven't bothered about that.

I think more and more people are starting to understand that you can't believe half of everything you read or what you see. There are so many information outlets that are available that it's almost too much, there is so much misinformation out there.

Don't be misled by History, or any other unreliable source.

But I don’t believe every bit of nonsense that gets rumored about.

Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

You can't believe everything you read.

We have Internet now and people are not stupid. But it seems that some people are trying to push the same agenda of the Cold War of conspiracy theories and amazing achievements that are very easily traced and validated.

You must never believe what the newspapers say. I stand aghast at the impudence of the lies they contain, things not only false in fact, but absolutely impossible.

One does not want to be deceived, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived.

Expect only 5% of an intelligence report to be accurate.The trick of a good commander is to isolate the 5%.

People should fact check. People shouldn’t have to go through that and shouldn’t answer to innuendos.

I think that any time you are making a film you have to realize that the people you are talking with might be giving you misinformation. Sometimes it is factually incorrect and for that, it's important to me to check it out and not let things find their way into the film without being challenged, either by me, or by another character, or by evidence that you might see on screen.

Cops never took anything on faith, and disbelieved every story that was told them on principle until and unless they could confirm that the story was fact in all its essentials, and even then remained wary and unconvinced. Cop shops bred skeptics. Skeptics cherished few illusions about human nature, and therefore were seldom disappointed.

I should never go with rumors because they're often not correct.

What is the use of straining after an amiable view of things, when a cynical view is most likely to be the true one?.

The best defence against bullshit is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something.

One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be enormously diminished by instructions as to the prevalent forms of mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day than it ever was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is much easier than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to democracy, the spread of misinformation is more important than in former times to the holders of power.

You have to tease enough misinformation and lack of information to hopefully make people want more.

Believe everything you hear said of the world; nothing is too impossibly bad.