“Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil;
In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish;
For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth;
Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use.”

Of Truth in Things False.
Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1849)

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Martin Farquhar Tupper31

English writer and poet 1810–1889

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“Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.”

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Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

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“One of the most popular superstitions consists in the belief that every man is endowed with definite qualities—that some men are kind, some wicked; some wise, some foolish; some energetic, some apathetic, etc. This is not true. We may say of a man that he is oftener kind than wicked; oftener wise than foolish; oftener energetic than apathetic, and vice versa. But it would not be true to say of one man that he is always kind or wise, and of another that he is always wicked or foolish. And yet we thus divide people. This is erroneous. Men are like rivers—the water in all of them, and at every point, is the same, but every one of them is now narrow, now swift, now wide, now calm, now clear, now cold, now muddy, now warm. So it is with men. Every man bears within him the germs of all human qualities, sometimes manifesting one quality, sometimes another; and often does not resemble himself at all, manifesting no change. With some people these changes are particularly sharp. And to this class Nekhludoff belonged.”

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“The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some error in Reasoning; or some sudden force of the Passions.”

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“It is the most foolish of all errors for young people of good intelligence to imagine that they will forfeit their originality if they acknowledge truth already acknowledged by others.”

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Der thörigste von allen Irrthümern ist, wenn junge gute Köpfe glauben, ihre Originalität zu verlieren, indem sie das Wahre anerkennen, was von andern schon anerkannt worden.
Maxim 254, trans. Stopp
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“Truth is contrary to our nature, not so error, and this for a very simple reason; truth demands that we should recognize ourselves as limited, error flatters us that, in one way or another, we are unlimited.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Die Wahrheit widerspricht unserer Natur, der Irrthum nicht, und zwar aus einem sehr einfachen Grunde: die Wahrheit fordert, daß wir uns für beschränkt erkennen follen, der Irrthum schmeichelt uns. wir seien auf ein- oder die andere Weise unbegränzt.
Maxim 310, trans. Stopp
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“If religion is about truth, why is it so afraid of error?”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

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“I do not agree or disagree in everything with either one party or the other. Because all seem to me to have some truth and some error, but everyone recognizes the other’s error and nobody discerns his own.”

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Young India 1924-1926 (1927), p. 1285
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“803. Antiquity cannot privilege an Error, nor Novelty prejudice a Truth.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

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“Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil;In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish;For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth;Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use.”

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Martin Farquhar Tupper31

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“Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil;
In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish;
For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth;
Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use.”