“When we know what words are worth, the amazing thing is that we try to say anything at all, and that we manage to do so. This requires, it is true, a supernatural nerve.”

— Emil M. Cioran

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Emil M. Cioran 531

Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995

Jill Lepore (1966) American historian

“We teach them to speak and also to listen. Because when people only talk and don't listen, they end up thinking that what they say is the only thing that is worth anything. … Speaking and listening to words is how we know who we are, where we come from, and where our steps are going. Also it's how we know about others, their steps, and their world. Speaking and listening to words is like listening to life.”

Subcomandante Marcos (1957) Mexican activist

"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet" http://www.csuchico.edu/zapatist/HTML/Archive/Communiques/etaJAN.html January, 2003

“Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak.

Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.”

Cressida Cowell book How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

Source: How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

“What is the worth of anything we do? The worth is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender the will to change and experience life”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Source: Eragon

“If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Miracles

Source: Miracles (1947), Ch. 1: "The Scope of this Book"

“Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

In Search of a Better World (1984)
Context: There are uncertain truths — even true statements that we may take to be false — but there are no uncertain certainties.
Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.

“And it's the damage that we do
And never know
It's the words that we don't say
That scare me so.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Accidents Will Happen
Song lyrics, Armed Forces (1979)

“To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

As quoted in Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau, Ch. 1
Attributed

“To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) Renaissance mathematician, Polish astronomer, physician

Confucius, as quoted in Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau, Ch. 1
Misattributed

“All or nothing at all, the true lover says, and that’s the truth of it. My love will never die, he says. He claims eternity. And rightly. How can it die when it’s life itself? What do we know of eternity but the glimpse we get of it when we enter in that bond?”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Other Wind (2001), Chapter 1 “Mending the Green Pitcher” (pp. 47-48)

“When we know what words are worth, the amazing thing is that we try to say anything at all, and that we manage to do so. This requires, it is true, a supernatural nerve.”

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Emil M. Cioran 531

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