“The pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in searching for it.”

— Leo Tolstoy , book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Last update May 21, 2020. History

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Leo Tolstoy 456

Russian writer 1828–1910

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Context: There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

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“The ancient Greeks, as Plato reports, believed that we discover truth through "reminiscence," that is by "remembering," by intuitively searching into our own experience.”

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“I paused and set down my glass, searching for the fine edge of deceit that always lies right up against the truth.”

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“That is why a criminal trial is not a search for truth. Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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[Alan, Dershowitz, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303544604576429783247016492.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop, Casey Anthony: The System Worked, The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2011, July 7, 2011] published 2011-07-07