“Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers.”
142
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I
Context: Nothing does Reason more Right, than the Coolness of those that offer it: for Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers.
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William Penn 53
English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker… 1644–1718Related quotes
“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”
Misattributed
“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”
This quote does appear in Einstein's 1940 essay "The Fundaments of Physics" which can be found in his book Out of My Later Years (1950), but Einstein does not claim credit for it, instead calling it "Lessing's fine saying".
Misattributed
"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.
Context: I see that the Rev. Dr. Eddy advises ministers not to answer the arguments of infidels in the pulpit, and gives this wonderful reason: That the hearers will get more doubts from the answer than from reading the original arguments. So the Rev. Dr. Hawkins admits that he cannot defend Christianity from infidel attacks without creating more infidelity.
Part 3, Section 16
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding
Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. X. "Man", p. 137
Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light
Context: It is not enough to speak; you must know words. When you have said, "I am in pain," or when you have said, "I am right," you have said nothing in reality, you have only spoken to yourself. The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings. It is not I who will be able to speak from the depths of myself. The attention of men dazzles me when it rises before me. The very nakedness of paper frightens me and drowns my looks. Not I shall embellish that whiteness with writing like light. I understand of what a great tribune's sorrow is made; and I can only dream of him who, visibly summarizing the immense crisis of human necessity in a work which forgets nothing, which seems to forget nothing, without the blot even of a misplaced comma, will proclaim our Charter to the epochs of the times in which we are, and will let us see it. Blessed be that simplifier, from whatever country he may come, — but all the same, I should prefer him, at the bottom of my heart, to speak French.
"The Irritable Chess-Players"
Other People's Trades (1985)
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XIII: On Groundless Fears
Original: (la) Plura sunt, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.