“Facts are stubborn things.”

Book X, ch. 1. Earlier written by Elliot, Essay on Field Husbandry, p. 35 (1747). Translated by Tobias George Smollett, Translation of Gil Blas, Book x, Chapter 1.
Gil Blas (1715-1735)

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 "Facts are stubborn things." by Alain-René Lesage?
Alain-René Lesage photo
Alain-René Lesage 14
French writer 1668–1747

Related quotes

Anthony Wayne photo

“Facts are stubborn things.”

Anthony Wayne (1745–1796) Continental Army general

Wayne, in a 1 May 1794 letter to the contractors who had failed to properly provision the Legion of the United States.
Attributed
Source: [Sword, Wiley, President Washington's Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1985, 0-8061-2488-1, 265]

Tobias Smollett photo

“Facts are stubborn things.”

Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) 18th-century poet and author from Scotland

Translation of Gil Blas (1749), Book X, Chap. 1.
Also used by Bernard Mandeville in An Enquiry Into the Origin of Honour (1732), p. 162, and by Jared Elliot in Essay on Field Husbandry (1747), p. 35.

Mark Twain photo
Samuel McChord Crothers photo

“We sometimes speak of stubborn facts. Nonsense! A fact is a mere babe when compared with a stubborn theory.”

Samuel McChord Crothers (1857–1927) American minister

Source: The Gentle Reader (1903), p. 277

John Adams photo

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence…”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1770s, Boston Massacre trial (1770)
Variant: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
Source: The Portable John Adams

Mao Zedong photo

“(Referring to the Kuomintang) There are many stubborn elements, graduates in the speciality schools of stubbornness. They are stubborn today, they will be stubborn tomorrow, and they will be stubborn the day after tomorrow. What is stubbornness (wan gu)? "Gu" is to be stiff. "Wan" is to not progress: not today, nor tomorrow, nor the day after tomorrow. People like that are called the "stubborn elements". It is not an easy thing to make the stubborn elements listen to our words.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Mao, 1967, as quoted by Jing Huang in The Role of Government Propaganda in the Educational System during the Cultural Revolution in China http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Cultural-Revolution-in-China-paper.pdf.

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Ella Wheeler Wilcox photo

“And if pretension for a time deceive,
And prove me one too ready to believe,
Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,
I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Credulity
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)
Context: p>If fallacies come knocking at my door,
I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score,
Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt,
And run the risk of barring one Truth out.And if pretension for a time deceive,
And prove me one too ready to believe,
Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,
I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.</p

Related topics