“False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth.”

Book IV, Ch. 7
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
Context: False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, et cetera.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update March 13, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth." by John Locke?
John Locke photo
John Locke 144
English philosopher and physician 1632–1704

Related quotes

Jean Starobinski photo
André Gide photo

“Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Ainsi soit-il; ou, Les Jeux sont faits
So be it; or, The chips are down
Gallimard
1952
174
Original: (fr) Croyez ceux qui cherchent la vérité, doutez de ceux qui la trouvent; doutez de tout, mais ne doutez pas de vous-même.

Václav Havel photo

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
Alexander Hamilton photo

“It is a maxim deeply ingrafted in that dark system, that no character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

Observations on Certain Documents http://books.google.com/books?id=Aemk203kBPoC&q="It+is+a+maxim+deeply+ingrafted+in+that+dark+system+that+No+character+however+upright+is+a+match+for+constantly+reiterated+attacks+however+false"&pg=PA377#v=onepage, also known as The Reynolds Pamphlet (1797)

André Gide photo

“Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

<!--from Gide's Journal 1939-1949-->
Variant: Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it
Context: Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

Blaise Pascal photo

“Several particular maxims… are as powerful, although false, in carrying away belief, as those the most true.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

Vitruvius photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to Allen N. Ford (11 August 1846), reported in Roy Prentice Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (1990 [1946])
1840s

Edgar Allan Poe photo
Christopher Hampton photo

“I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.”

Christopher Hampton (1946) British playwright, screenwriter and film director

Don, in The Philanthropist (1969), scene 6

Related topics