
Of Truth in Things False.
Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1849)
Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 57
Of Truth in Things False.
Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1849)
"How Not To Better Social Conditions" in Review of Reviews (January 1897), p. 39
1890s
"1901", p. 76. Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing". Sometimes misattributed to Bertrand Russell or Anatole France
A Writer's Notebook (1946)
W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook (1949), entry for 1901
Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
Sometimes misattributed to Anatole France
Note that Russell does say something similar in Marriage and Morals (1929): "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."
Misattributed
Antisthenes, 4.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 6: The Cynics
“I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.”
Nus ne puet estre trop parliers
Qui sovent tel chose ne die
Qui torné li est affolie,
Car li sages dit et retrait:
Qui trop parole, il se mesfait.
Source: Perceval or Le Conte du Graal, Line 1650.
Sisyphus, as translated by R. G. Bury, and revised by J. Garrett http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/critias.htm
Variant translation: He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II, as quoted in The Book of Days : A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities (1832) by Robert Chambers, Viol. II, July 26, p. 126.