The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Context: Experience does not err; only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power. Men wrongly complain of Experience; with great abuse they accuse her of leading them astray but they set Experience aside, turning from it with complaints as to our ignorance causing us to be carried away by vain and foolish desires to promise ourselves, in her name, things that are not in her power; saying that she is fallacious. Men are unjust in complaining of innocent Experience, constantly accusing her of error and of false evidence.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
“Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her
Is righted even when men grant they err.”
Monsieur D'Olive, Act I, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Be more than careful,” he told her. “Be totally paranoid. Err on the side of caution.”
Source: Waking Hours: Book 1 in East Salem Trilogy with Pete Nelson (Thomas Nelson), p. 124
“Nor is the people's judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few.”
Pt. I, lines 781–782.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.”
Young India (12 March 1931), p. 31 http://books.google.com/books?id=1HZDAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Freedom+is+not+worth+having+if+it+does+not+connote+freedom+to+err%22&pg=PA31#v=onepage
1930s
Context: Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
Anonymous rhyme satirising Three Weeks, quoted in J. Lee Thompson Forgotten Patriot (Madison, N.J.:Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2007) p. 259
Criticism
Canto V, stanza 1.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)
Attributed as a remark of 29th November 1972, in Incompleteness (2005) by Rebecca Goldstein
Sermon (18 February 1498) http://books.google.com/books?id=92QaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA26&dq=%22savonarola+asserted+in+his+sermon+on%22&hl=en&ei=i1uNTYXyFMPH0QGf682zCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22savonarola%20asserted%20in%20his%20sermon%20on%22&f=false, as translated in History of the Popes (1901) by Ludwig Pastor, as translated by Frederick Ignatius Antobus, Vol. 6, p. 26
Context: The Pope may err, and that in two ways, either because he is erroneously informed, or from malice. As to the latter cause we leave that to the judgment of God, and believe rather that he has been misinformed. In our own case I can prove that he has been falsely persuaded. Therefore any one who obstinately upholds the excommunication and affirms that I ought not to preach these doctrines is fighting against the kingdom of Christ, and supporting the kingdom of Satan, and is himself a heretic, and deserves to be excluded from the Christian community.
