“As success converts treason into legitimacy, so belief converts fiction into fact, and "nothing is but what is not."”
"That what Everybody Says must be True".
Sketches from Life (1846)
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Samuel Laman Blanchard40
British author and journalist 1804–1845Related quotes
“Equality may be a right, but no power on earth can convert it into fact.”
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer
L'égalité sera peut-être un droit, mais aucune puissance humaine ne saura le convertir en fait. <br class="br"> La Duchesse de Langeais http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Duchesse_de_Langeais (1834), translated by Ellen Marriage, part II.
James Harvey Robinson (1863–1936) American historian
Source: The Human Comedy : As Devised and Directed by Mankind Itself (1937), Ch. 1
Context: It is a poor technic when attempting to convert one's neighbor to attack his beliefs directly, especially those of the sacred variety. We may flatter ourselves that we are undermining them by our potent reasoning only to find that we have shored them up so that they are firmer than ever. Often history will work where nothing else will. It very gently modifies one's attitude. Refutations are weak compared with its mild but potent operation. To become historically-minded is to be grown-up.
Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician
Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism
Source: Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion (1913), p. 36
Spider Robinson book Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
Source: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) "Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy"
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)
"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)