“It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.”
Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State
Source: A Distant Mirror (1978), p. 291
“It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.”
Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–1995) physicist
From a lecture, "Beauty and the Quest for Beauty in Science" given at the International Symposium in recognition of Robert R. Wilson on April 27, 1979 at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois.
Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist
Nelson Mandela on life, 90th Birthday celebration of Walter Sisulu, Walter Sisulu Hall, Randburg, Johannesburg, South Africa (18 May 2002). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes <br class="br">2000s
Paul Krugman (1953) American economist
"A Dark Age of Macroeconomics" http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/a-dark-age-of-macroeconomics-wonkish/, 27 January 2009 <br class="br">The Conscience of a Liberal blog
Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer
Source: On having a pessimistic nature in “Jesmyn Ward: ‘So much of life is pain and sorrow and wilful ignorance’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/12/jesmyn-ward-sing-unburied-sing-interview-meet-author in The Guardian (2017 Nov 12)
John F. Kerry (1943) politician from the United States
September 27, 2010. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/28/democrats_in_denial_about_unpopular_policies.html
“In fact, the truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet
Source: The Necessity of Atheism and Other Essays
“What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
2
Original German: Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
“Mistakes are a fact of life: It is the response to the error that counts.”
Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic