“From error to error, one discovers the entire truth.”

The quote "From error to error, one discovers the entire truth." is famous quote attributed to Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis.

Original

De erro em erro vai-se descobrindo a verdade.

[carece de fontes]
Atribuídas

Last update April 18, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Sigmund Freud photo
Sigmund Freud 147
Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psycho… 1856–1939

Related quotes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“It is as certain as it is marvelous that truth and error come from one source. Therefore one often may not injure error, because at the same time one injures truth.”

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

Es ist so gewiß als wunderbar, daß Wahrheit und Irrthum aus Einer Quelle entstehen; deßwegen man oft dem Irrthum nicht schaden darf, weil man zugleich der Wahrheit schadet.
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle photo

“It is more reasonable to remove error from truth, than to venerate error because it is mix'd with truth.”

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment

p, 125
The History of Oracles, and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests (1688)

Leo Tolstoy photo
Peter Mere Latham photo

“It is no easy task to pick one's way from truth to truth through besetting errors.”

Peter Mere Latham (1789–1875) English physician and educator

Book II, p. 415.
Collected Works

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Error is related to truth as sleeping is to waking. I have observed that when one has been in error, one turns to truth as though revitalized.”

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

Der Irrthum verhält sich gegen das Wahre wie der Schlaf gegen das Wachen. Ich habe bemerkt, daß man aus dem Irren sich wie erquickt wieder zu dem Wahren hinwende.
Maxim 331, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

H.L. Mencken photo

“Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 3 "Footnote on Criticism", pp. 85-104
Context: Truth, indeed, is something that is believed in completely only by persons who have never tried personally to pursue it to its fastness and grab it by the tail. It is the adoration of second-rate men — men who always receive it as second-hand. Pedagogues believe in immutable truths and spend their lives trying to determine them and propagate them; the intellectual progress of man consists largely of a concerted effort to block and destroy their enterprise. Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed. In whole departments of human inquiry it seems to me quite unlikely that the truth ever will be discovered. Nevertheless, the rubber-stamp thinking of the world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth — that error and truth are simply opposites. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it has been cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one. This is the whole history of the intellect in brief. The average man of today does not believe in precisely the same imbecilities that the Greek of the Fourth Century before Christ believed in, but the things that he does believe in are often quite as idiotic.
Perhaps this statement is a bit too sweeping. There is, year by year, a gradual accumulation of what may be called, provisionally, truths — there is a slow accretion of ideas that somehow manage to meet all practicable human tests, and so survive. But even so, it is risky to call them absolute truths. All that one may safely say of them is that no one, as yet, has demonstrated that they are errors. Soon or late, if experience teaches us anything, they are likely to succumb too. The profoundest truths of the Middle Ages are now laughed at by schoolboys. The profoundest truths of democracy will be laughed at, a few centuries hence, even by school-teachers.

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7 : Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, p. 119

“We do not protect freedom in order to indulge error. We protect freedom in order to discover truth.”

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian

Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 18

Thomas Paine photo

“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The complete political works. Rights of man: being an answer to Mr. Burke's attack on the French Revolution, p. 306
1790s

Thomas Watson photo

“Truth is an antidote against error. Error is the adultery of the mind.”

Thomas Watson (1616–1686) English nonconformist preacher and author

Heaven Taken By Storm

Related topics