“… we can afford many mistakes in the search. The main thing is to make as fast as possible.”
As quoted by Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and Wojciech H. Zurek. "John Wheeler, relativity, and quantum information." https://authors.library.caltech.edu/15184/1/Misner2009p1638Phys_Today.pdf Physics Today 62, no. 4 (April 2009): 40–46 (quote from p. 44) [10.1063/1.3120895]
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John Archibald Wheeler 16
American physicist 1911–2008Related quotes

In Search of a Better World (1984)
Context: There are uncertain truths — even true statements that we may take to be false — but there are no uncertain certainties.
Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.

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XII. The origin of evil things; and that there is no positive evil.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.

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