“Rumor is rarely more interesting than fact, but it is always more readily available.”
Source: The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 46, Resting Places, I
“It is an acknowledged fact that we perceive errors in the work of others more readily than in our own.”
The quote "It is an acknowledged fact that we perceive errors in the work of others more readily tha…" is famous quote attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519), Italian Renaissance polymath.
Last update Sept. 27, 2023.
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Leonardo Da Vinci 363
Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519Related quotes
Abraham Lincoln
(1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Context: When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals. My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted, but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.
Lewis M. Branscomb
(1926) physicist and science policy advisor
1994, p. 45
Integrity in Science (1985)
Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 1
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician
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
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
“Nothing is more intolerable than to have admit to yourself your own errors.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven
(1770–1827) German Romantic composer