“The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail’ is merely a pious wish; history doesn’t show it.”

— Robert A. Heinlein, book Methuselah's Children

Methuselah’s Children (p. 606)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail’ is…" by Robert A. Heinlein?

Robert A. Heinlein557

American science fiction author 1907–1988

Related quotes

“For the trouble with lying and decieving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide. In this sense, truth, even if it does not prevail in public, possesses an ineradicable primacy over all falsehoods.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

"Lying in Politics"
Crises of the Republic (1969)

“This argument too shows that in truth we know nothing about anything, but every man shares the generally prevailing opinion.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Fragments

“Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.) (5)”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Original German: Der Satz ist eine Wahrheitsfunktion der Elementarsätze
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

“Pure Mathematics is the class of all propositions of the form “p implies q,” where p and q are propositions containing one or more variables, the same in the two propositions, and neither p nor q contains any constants except logical constants. And logical constants are all notions definable in terms of the following: Implication, the relation of a term to a class of which it is a member, the notion of such that, the notion of relation, and such further notions as may be involved in the general notion of propositions of the above form. In addition to these, mathematics uses a notion which is not a constituent of the propositions which it considers, namely the notion of truth.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Principles of Mathematics (1903), Ch. I: Definition of Pure Mathematics, p. 3
1900s

“I learned a little of beauty-- enough to know that it had nothing to do with truth…”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

“The truth doesn’t hurt. Whatever it is, it doesn’t hurt. It’s better to know the truth.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter

"Inside the Actors Studio," 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBBtYcK9Jb8

“The truth [is in his paintings]... When they have a similar structure to and are organized in as truthful a way as nature. When I look out of the window, then truth for me is the way nature shows itself in its various tones, colours and proportions. That's a truth and has its own correctness. This little slice of nature, and in fact any given piece of nature, represents to me an ongoing challenge, and is a model for my paintings.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

In an interview with Christiane Vielhaber, 1986; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Other subjects' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/other-aspects-6 <br class="br">1980's

“In morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact.”

Ernest Renan (1823–1892) French philosopher and writer

Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.

“When the mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that "truth" is self-projected, for then the mind is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than the previous one. When the mind seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Vol. VI, p 5, "First Talk in Rajahmundry (20 November 1949) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=335&chid=4655&w=%22You+cannot+find+truth+through+anybody+else%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 491120 <br class="br">Posthumous publications, The Collected Works <br class="br">Context: You cannot find truth through anybody else. How can you? Surely, truth is not something static; it has no fixed abode; it is not an end, a goal. On the contrary, it is living, dynamic, alert, alive. How can it be an end? If truth is a fixed point, it is no longer truth; it is then a mere opinion. Sir, truth is the unknown, and a mind that is seeking truth will never find it. For mind is made up of the known; it is the result of the past, the outcome of time — which you can observe for yourself. Mind is the instrument of the known; hence it cannot find the unknown; it can only move from the known to the known. When the mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that "truth" is self-projected, for then the mind is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than the previous one. When the mind seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth. After all, an ideal is self-projected; it is fictitious, unreal. What is real is what is, not the opposite. But a mind that is seeking reality, seeking God, is seeking the known. When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth. The moment you think of the unknown, it is merely the self-projected known. So, God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be sought; it comes to you. You can go after only what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself. Truth is in every leaf, every tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you to truth; and if anyone leads you, it can only be to the known.

“The assimilation of tautologies and contradictions with true and false propositions respectively results from the fact that tautologies and contradictions can be taken as truth-functions just like ordinary propositions, and for determining the truth of falsity of the truth-function, tautologies and contradictions among its arguments must be counted as true or false respectively. …Are the propositions of symbolic logic and mathematics tautologies in Mr Wittgenstein's sense?”

Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930) British mathematician, philosopher

The Foundations of Mathematics (1925)

“The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail’ is merely a pious wish; history doesn’t show it.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Robert A. Heinlein557

Related quotes

Related topics