
“It is better to have a bad method than to have none.”
Il vaut mieux avoir une méthode mauvaise plutôt que de n'en avoir aucune.
in Le Fil de l’épée.
Writings
Speech at his inauguration as Lord Rector of The University of Edinburgh (6 November 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 83.
1925
“It is better to have a bad method than to have none.”
Il vaut mieux avoir une méthode mauvaise plutôt que de n'en avoir aucune.
in Le Fil de l’épée.
Writings
“A little doubt is better than total credulity.”
As quoted in Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out (2003) by Ibn Warraq, p. 68
Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 3: Government By Consent And Consent, p 50
Source: The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Ch. 6.
Context: It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. Some of us can't: and are proud of our impotence, too.
“Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.”
Variously attributed to Lincoln, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and Socrates
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Cited as an example of "What Mark Twain Didn't Say" in Mark Twain by Geoffrey C. Ward, et al.
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
“Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean.”
Source: The Rebel (1951), pp. 8 - 10 as quoted in Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd';(2002) by Avi Sagi, p. 44
Context: The absurd … is an experience to be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence of Descartes' methodical doubt. Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. The first and only evidence that is supplied me, within the terms of the absurdist experience, is rebellion … Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality, confronted with an unjust and incomprehensible condition.
In George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (eds.) Rogues (p. 245)
Short fiction, A Year and a Day in Old Theradane (2014)