“Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.”

— John Dryden , Absalom and Achitophel

Pt. I line 83-84.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

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John Dryden 196

English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

In the Veery journal interview in 1996, in reply to the question of "What is the most rewarding aspect of philosophy?" presented by Veery editor Steven Vita, later reprinted in 1997 in the Austin American-Statesman and then quoted from in The New York Times obituary entitled “Charles Hartshorne, Theologian, Is Dead; Proponent of an Activist God Was 103.”

“False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.”

Richard Burton (1925–1984) Welsh actor

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

11
Writing for the Theatre (1962)

“It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

The American Mercury (May 1926)
1920s
Context: It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. To admit that the false has any standing in court, that it ought to be handled gently because millions of morons cherish it and thousands of quacks make their livings propagating it—to admit this, as the more fatuous of the reconcilers of science and religion inevitably do, is to abandon a just cause to its enemies, cravenly and without excuse. It is, of course, quite true that there is a region in which science and religion do not conflict. That is the region of the unknowable.

“I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible.”

Matt Dillahunty (1969) American activist

“A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

“There are many things—some true, some false— unsupportable by rational means.”

Barry Mazur (1937) American mathematician

Barry Mazur,
Context: Sometimes the mathematical anti-Platonist believes that headway is made by showing Platonism to be unsupportable by rational means, and that it is an incoherent position to take when formulated in a propositional vocabulary. It is easy enough to throw together propositional sentences. But it is a good deal more difficult to capture a Platonic disposition in a propositional formulation that is a full and honest expression of some flesh-and-blood mathematician’s view of things. There is, of course, no harm in trying—and maybe its a good exercise. But even if we cleverly came up with a proposition that is up to the task of expressing Platonism formally, the mere fact that the proposition cannot be demonstrated to be true won’t necessarily make it vanish. There are many things—some true, some false— unsupportable by rational means.