“Even if moral truths cannot affect people, they can still be truths.”
Source: Derek Parfit, ‘Reasons and Motivation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 71 (1997), p. 111
“Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, — never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth.”
The Great Infidels (1881)
Context: All the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of an opinion. Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, — never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth.
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Robert G. Ingersoll 439
Union United States Army officer 1833–1899Related quotes
Volume III, part IV, chapter VII (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)
“Only an idiot could believe that scientific truth needs martyrdom”
David Hilbert
(1862–1943) German prominent mathematician
Hilbert (2nd edition, 1996) by Constance Reid, p. 92
Context: But he (Galileo) was not an idiot,... Only an idiot could believe that scientific truth needs martyrdom — that may be necessary in religion, but scientific results prove themselves in time.
Blaise Pascal
(1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
“To be immediately inconvenients to most people, it is enough to be true, correct and sincere.”
Prevale
(1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: Per essere immediatamente scomodi alla maggior parte delle persone, è sufficiente essere veri, corretti e sinceri.
Source: prevale.net
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
(1729–1781) writer, philosopher, publicist, and art critic
Anti-Goeze (1778), as quoted in God Is Not Great (2007), by Christopher Hitchens , Ch. 19
Context: The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand, and say: Father, I will take this one—the pure Truth is for You alone.
“… the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.”
Anne Lamott
(1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist
Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
Abraham Lincoln
(1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Letter to Allen N. Ford (11 August 1846), reported in Roy Prentice Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (1990 [1946])
1840s
“I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.”
Voltaire
(1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
J'aime fort la vérité, mais je n'aime point du tout le martyre.
Letter to Jean le Rond d'Alembert (8 February 1776)
Citas