“I would say that my aims of writing this book are less concerned with the facts of history than with the truth of art.”
Argument of Kings, 1987
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Vernon Scannell 33
British boxer and poet 1922–2007Related quotes
“There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.”
Robert Lynd (1926) The orange tree: a volume of essays. p.60. The last sentence "Knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts not to bother about." was cited in some sources in the 1960s, such as August Kerber (1968) Quotable quotes on education. p.190, and in multiple other sources ever since.
“Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.”
In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis (1991)
Context: I am a fictionalizing philosopher, not a novelist; my novel and story-writing ability is employed as a means to formulate my perception. The core of my writing is not art but truth. Thus what I tell is the truth, yet I can do nothing to alleviate it, either by deed or explanation. Yet this seems somehow to help a certain kind of sensitive troubled person, for whom I speak. I think I understand the common ingredient in those whom my writing helps: they cannot or will not blunt their own intimations about the irrational, mysterious nature of reality, and, for them, my corpus of writing is one long ratiocination regarding this inexplicable reality, an investigation and presentation, analysis and response and personal history. My audience will always be limited to those people.
David Ulrich cited in: Stephen Covey (2006), The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything, p. 172
“Philosophy has taught me to rely on my own convictions rather than on the judgements of others and to concern myself less with whether I am well thought of than whether what I do or say is evil.”
Docuit me ipsa philosophia a propria potius conscientia quam ab externis pendere iuditiis, cogitareque semper, non tam ne male audiam, quam ne quid male vel dicam ipse vel agam.
25. 160; translation by A. Robert Caponigri
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1496)
“May I really say it! All truths are bloody truths to me—take a look at my previous writings.”
Notebooks (Summer 1880) 4[271]