Quotes about wrong
page 43

“No one I imagine is so stupid as to believe that truth or even an approximation of truth is derived from counting pieces of marked paper and that the largest pile of papers is it. What makes democracy so fragile is the certain knowledge, even by the winners, that it is often wrong and if they think it’s right now, then it’s either been wrong at some time in the past or will be at some time in the future. There is then a shaky agreement on both sides of a democratic debate that there is some more fundamental reason for using this method to make decisions than that it is always right. In Western Europe over the last century or so that shaky agreement has not always held together and indeed it still is far from ordinary worldwide. A common everyday reason why most people accept democratic results is that they are rarely always on the losing side. And in the case of government elections they can have another opportunity to persuade the majority that the opinion they hold is correct and hope that the mistakes of the previous few years are not so very bad. On a much deeper level however respecting the “will of the people” comes from a profoundly scary place.”

Justin Barrett (1971) Irish activist

A Republic of Innocent Dead Cannot Live https://nationalparty.ie/a-republic-of-innocent-dead-cannot-live/ (June 4, 2018)

Bad luck, People, Truth, Stupidity

“To the wrongs that need resistance, To the right that needs assistance, To the future in the distance, Give yourselves.”

Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947) American social reformer, suffragist (1859-1947)

Quoted in Great Women of the Suffrage Movement (We the People: Industrial America) by Dana Meachen Rau (2005)

Future

“Men are not zoophilists (being-lovers). Not many of them are philanthropists (man-lovers). They are barbarians. And the wrongs inflicted by them on non-human beings are for the most part inflicted simply because they feel like it. Human nature is so constructed that men get pleasure out of doing the most monstrous deeds. It is worse than this. Human nature is so constructed that it contains elements which demand exercise, demand motor expression, and in whose expression the most lamentable and appalling effects are produced.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, p. 154

Men, Pleasure, Feeling, Exercises

“When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong. And sizing is a form of thinking and coloring is too. My instinct about painting says, 'If you don’t think about it, it's right.'”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets. Some people, they paint abstract, so they sit there thinking about it because their thinking makes them feel they're doing something. But my thinking never makes me feel I'm doing anything.
Source: 1970s, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 149

Color, Thinking, Painting

“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter From Thomas Jefferson to the Rev. James Madison, 19 July 1788
1780s

Idea, Falseness

“Remember everything is right until it's wrong. You'll know when it's wrong.'
'You think so?”

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

'I'm quite sure. If you don't it doesn't matter. Nothing will matter then.'
Colonel John Boyle and David in Ch. 7
The Garden of Eden (1986)

Thinking

“Feminism was always wrong to pretend that women could “have it all.””

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

It is not male society but mother nature who lays the heaviest burden on woman. No husband or day care can adequately substitute for a mother’s attention. My feminist heroes are the boldly independent and childless Amelia Earhart and Katherine Hepburn, who has been outspoken in her opposition to the delusion of “having it all.”
Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), p. 89

Women

“Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history. The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene (1974) American politician and businesswoman from the state of Georgia

Statement from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy https://republicanleader.house.gov/leader-mccarthy-condemns-comparisons-to-the-holocaust/, 25 May 2021 About

History, Decision

“Simply, libertarians do not advocate the initiation of force, fraud, or theft to achieve social or political goals. If you refused to contribute to my favorite charity, and I took your money at gunpoint anyway, I’d be stealing from you. Similarly, if I vote for taxes to force you to contribute to that charity, I’m asking the government to take your money—at gunpoint, if necessary… Wrong doesn’t turn into right, just because the majority agrees to it. Minorities have no protection if they have to depend upon the majority for it.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Short Answers to the Tough Questions: How to Answer the Questions Libertarians Are Often Asked, (2012), p. 18

Money, Fraud, Dependency

“We are encouraged to think of acts of police violence more or less in isolation, to consider them as unique, unrelated occurrences. We ask ourselves always, “What went wrong?””

Kristian Williams (1974) American historian

and for answers we look to the seconds, minutes, or hours before the incident. Perhaps this leads us to fault the individual officer, perhaps it leads us to excuse him. Such thinking, derived as it is from legal reasoning, does not take us far beyond the case in question. And thus, such inquiries are rarely very illuminating. The shooting of Oscar Grant, the beating of Rodney King, the arrest of Marquette Frye, the killing of Arthur McDuffie — any of these may be explained in terms of the actions and attitudes of the particular officers at the scene, the events preceding the violence (including the actions of the victims), and the circumstances in which the officers found themselves. Indeed, juries and police administrators have frequently found it possible to excuse police violence with such explanations. The unrest that followed these incidents, however, cannot be explained in such narrow terms. To understand the rioting, one must consider a whole range of related issues, including the conditions of life in the Black community, the role of the police in relation to that community, and the history and pattern of similar abuses. If we are to understand the phenomenon of police brutality, we must get beyond particular cases. We can better understand the actions of individual police officers if we understand the institution of which they are a part. That institution, in turn, can best be examined if we have an understanding of its origins, its social function, and its relation to larger systems like capitalism and white supremacy.
Rights, riots and police brutality, 2020

Thinking

“The First Amendment is not limited to the right to be right; it also enshrines the right to be wrong.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

“The Wrong Response to Holtzman”, New York Times, Dec. 30, 1987

“The condition of all progress is experience. We go wrong a thousand times before we find the right path. We struggle, and grope, and hurt ourselves until we learn the use of things, and this is true of things spiritual as well as of material things. Pain is unavoidable, but it acquires a new and higher meaning when we perceive that it is the price humanity must pay for an invaluable good.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 8 : Suffering and Consolation
Life and Destiny (1913)

Pain, Learning, Time, Hurt

“Every physician knows the numerous sources of error which may lead an able advocate to wrong conclusions. The difficult art of statistics, which is no simple arrangement of numbers, but often requires very elaborate calculations, may lend itself to error; the neglect of some facts, or the undue prominence of others, the comparison of dissimilar conditions, or observations made on too short a scale or for too short a period—all these various conditions must be considered as sources of possible error.”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

p. 754 https://books.google.com/books?id=85o2AAAAMAAJ&pg=754 Medicine and Morality (1881)

Art, Error

“What I am able to say concerning the direction and aim of our terms, I have already said repeatedly. To put an end to the war with a durable peace that will compensate us for all the wrongs we have suffered and will safeguard the existence and future of a strong Germany—that is our aim.”

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921) German chancellor during World War I

Speech to the Reichstag (27 February 1917), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany from Defeat to Conquest, 1913–1933 (1945), p. 91

War, Peace, Strong, Suffering

“If you are right among the wrong people, you may even be right, but you will still be seen as wrong.”

Valter Bitencourt Júnior (1994) Brazilian poet and writer

People

“Some people found error messages they couldn't ignore more annoying than wrong results, and, when judging the relative merits of programming languages, some still seem to equate "the ease of programming" with the ease of making undetected mistakes.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1976-79) On the foolishness of "natural language programming" https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667.html (EWD 667) 1970s

People, Error

“The fact that no one has come up with a really convincing reason for giving greater moral weight to members of our own species, simply because they are members of our species, strongly suggests that there is no such reason. Like racism and sexism, speciesism is wrong.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Source: The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics (2017), p. 343

“Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

“Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

“Democracy's premise rests on the notion that the collective wisdom of the majority will prove right more often than it's wrong; that given sufficient opportunity in the pursuit of happiness, your population will develop its talents, its intellect, its better judgment; that over time its capacity for discernment and self-correction will be enlarged.”

Ben Fountain (1958) American writer

Wisdom, Happiness, Democracy, Time

“I don’t want revolutions. Categorically, because innocent heads will fly into the revolution and into all these wars. I think this is wrong. No revolutions. Do everything that is possible, but to prevent this from happening. At both sides. I would choose North Korea. I don't want sacrifices. It means that some tactics, some experience, some wisdom are lacking for people who are against this regime. That's all.”

Chulpan Khamatova (1975) Russian actress

On why she supports Vladimir Putin in Чулпан Хаматова: «Я очень много чего боюсь» (7 June 2012) https://tvrain.ru/teleshow/sobchak_zhivem/chulpan_khamatova_ya_by_vybrala_severnuyu_koreyu_a_ne_revolyutsiyu-286479/

Wisdom, War, People, Thinking

“There was something fundamentally wrong with our economic system. It was based upon injustice and could not last.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons
Source: Speech to the Welsh National Liberal Federation in Rhyl (9 July 1926), quoted in The Times (10 July 1926), p. 16

“Ideologies are like arseholes: everyone's got one, we use it every day, but you very rarely look at your own unless something's gone wrong.”

Abigail Thorn (1993) British actress and YouTuber

Source: Jordan Peterson's Ideology | Philosophy Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m81q-ZkfBm0, 09.04.2021

“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong
And I am Marie of Roumania.”

Marie of Edinburgh, Queen of Romania (1875–1938) last Queen consort of Romania as the wife of King Ferdinand I

Dorothy Parker, "Comment"

Love, Life

“There is no wrath like the cold fury of the professional spirit proved wrong by outsiders, and no folly comparable to its reactions under such conditions.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Volume I, p. 694
War Memoirs (1938)

“Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"The Nearest Star" (1989) (reprinted in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 82)
General sources

Universe, Science, Change

“The man who has never made a mistake has no need of an eraser; just so the man who has never done anything wrong has no need of a Redeemer.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: The Armor of God (1943), Ch. 1, p. 4

“The things everyone knows are most likely to be wrong.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XIX

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong… I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Source: Curious Character

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Universe

“And to everyone who ever tried to convince me that I couldn't win, thank you for inspiring me to prove you wrong. Na-na na-na boo-boo.”

MJ Hegar (1976) American Air Force veteran, politician, author

Source: Shoot Like a Girl: One Woman's Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front (2017), p. 292

“If people are criticising your work, take it in the right spirit and try to find out what is wrong. I made a lot of mistakes on my first film and told myself not to do it again. Remember that you’re not making a film to keep it in a box, it’s for the people.”

Rima Das (1982) Indian Assamese film maker

Film Companion Article - Rima Das Gives Tips On Zero Budget Filmmaking - 4 November 2017 https://www.filmcompanion.in/interviews/bollywood-interview/rima-das-gives-tips-on-zero-budget-filmmaking/ - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210728182917/https://www.filmcompanion.in/interviews/bollywood-interview/rima-das-gives-tips-on-zero-budget-filmmaking/

People, Box

“There is no correlation between having the ability to punish and being right. More often than not, the wrong people get punished. And the punishers use their power to keep from being accountable.”

Sarah Schulman (1958) American writer

Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair (2016)

People

“It could have happened to anybody. People are always saying, 'He didn't apologize.' I don't think I did anything wrong that I need to apologize for. It was a clean hit.”

Jack Tatum (1948–2010) All-American college football player, professional football player, defensive back, safety, College Footbal…

about the Darryl Stingley hit.
Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum by Jack Tatum with Bill Kushner (1996)

People, Thinking

“If eval() is the answer, you're almost certainly asking the wrong question.”

Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) Danish programmer and creator of PHP

PHP.net: eval http://php.net/eval, Anonymous comment, 2004 PHP in a Nutshell https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/php-in-a/0596100671/re47.html by Paul Hudson, 2005

Question

“We can allow for Slow Medicine beds in our hospitals so that doctors have enough time to find out what is really wrong with a patient, and patients have enough time to heal.”

Victoria Sweet Physician

Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing (2017)

Time

“Misogyny is absolutely wrong whether it's a man against a woman or a woman against a man.”

Dominic Raab (1974) British politician (born 1974)

Interviewed on the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58814271 (6 October 2021) 2020s, 2021

“Do you know why this world is as bad as it is? […] it is because people think only about their own business, and won't trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doer to light.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty (1877), Ch. XXXVIII, p. 192

People, World, Business, Thinking

“When you had little or no information, it was unreasonable to have any expectations. But somehow you did, even if they were often wrong.”

Charles Sheffield book Resurgence

Source: The Heritage Universe, Resurgence (2002), Chapter 20, “Tally on Down” (p. 246)

“When a person was so consistently wrong, it was time to give up having opinions.”

Charles Sheffield book Convergence

Source: The Heritage Universe, Convergence (1997), Chapter 23 (p. 488)

Time, Personality

“First we made the wheel
Then we made the car
Then we made the bomb
Now it's all gone wrong”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"What we Made" (song) ("What we Made" on YouTube (filmed at Chernobyl)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOOl08NQWU8 (+ Lyrics version of "What we Made" on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXAOGn0CfJk Studio albums, What We Made (2007)

Cars

“It would be deemed sinful of you to refuse to change even though you know that you are completely wrong.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Change

“Keep in mind that it would be an exaggeration to tell, or convince another individual that they are COMPLETELY wrong.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“The act of sinning is to allow your will to become rebellious, or do the things wrong that are under your own control.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Anytime a son-in-law does something wrong, he can easily become a son-out-law.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Law

“Most of the terrible wars in the world are based upon religion. It seems to divide, rather than uniting. Perhaps, we are going wrong somewhere.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

War, World, Religion

“The major downside of democracy is that even the least critical minds will never think they are wrong.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Democracy, Thinking

“When you get a lot of success in your career, you start believing that you can never go wrong. But I had a massive fall.”

Amit Lodha (1974) Indian author and police officer

Quoted in Ted Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/amit_lodha_how_to_be_a_top_cop Quotation

Success

“Science doesn't stop when it comes up with a nice answer. It looks for more data. It comes up with new ideas. It's willing to admit it's wrong.”

Guy Consolmagno (1952) American Jesuit, Catholic Priest, research astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory.

[From MIT to Specola Vaticana: Guy Consolmagno at TEDxViadellaConcialiazione, April 24, 2013, TEDx Talks, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmU2gDbP_Tk] (quote at 6:38 of 17:52)

Idea, Science

“I think it's wrong, particularly for clergymen, to protect a child molester. This is a step backwards.”

Beverly White (1928–2021) American politician

As quoted in The Salt Lake Tribune https://archive.ph/9bzsC (February 26, 1988) Stated in response to legislation which would allow confessions from child abusers to the clergy to remain confidential

Thinking

“Something’s wrong.”

Karl Schroeder book Ventus

Axel shrugged. “That statement probably applies to every second I’ve spent on this blasted world.”
Source: Ventus (2000), Chapter 44 (p. 632)

“Then — in that day — we shall not meet
Wrong with new wrong, but right with right;
Our faith shall make your faith complete
When our battalions re-unite.

Forward!”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

what use in idle words? —
Forward, O warriors of the soul!
There will be breaking up of swords
When that new morning makes us whole.
Forward
The Lord of Misrule and Other Poems (1915)

Faith

“Temporary defeat should mean only one thing, the certain knowledge that there is something wrong with your plan. Millions of men go through life in misery and poverty, because they lack a sound plan through which to accumulate a fortune.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p. 73

Life, Men, Knowledge

“If the King can do no wrong, it is akin to looking down upon him, because the King is not being treated as a human being. The King can do wrong.”

Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927–2016) King of Thailand

Source: As quoted in 2005, "Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej: One of the world’s longest-reigning monarchs" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/13/asia/thai-king-bhumibol-adulyadej-obituary/index.html (14 October 2016)

“It is surely better to be wronged than to do wrong.”

Isaac Asimov book In Memory Yet Green

In Memory Yet Green (1979), p. 175
General sources

“If America is the culmination of Western white civilisation, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilisation.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Partisan Review (Winter 1967), p. 57

“One must know what is right and wrong and what is good and what is bad and what should be done and what should not be done. As well as manners, we must force our hearts to always be in good morals.”

Ananda Mahidol (1925–1946) eighth monarch of Siam from the Chakri dynasty as Rama VIII

Source: "Speech while conferring degree certificates to the graduating students of Chulalongkorn University" http://www.memohall.chula.ac.th/article/%E0%B8%81/ (13 April 1946)

Heart

“We know only too well that there are times when everything goes wrong, but, in our haste to make the worst of life, we are apt to forget that there are also times when everything goes right.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Faraway (1932), Ch. 5. 5

Life, Time, Forgetting

“I'd rather be optimistic and wrong; than pessimistic and right.
..
We have planes, trains, automobiles, bikes, walking, Segway, hot air balloons, mopeds and boats, ... What if there was a tenth mode?”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Source: 13 July 2012 [Garber, Megan, The Real iPod: Elon Musk's Wild Idea for a 'Jetson Tunnel' from S.F. to L.A., http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-real-ipod-elon-musks-wild-idea-for-a-jetson-tunnel-from-sf-to-la/259825/, 21 July 2012, The Atlantic] regarding Hyperloop

Training

“There's nothing wrong with the world. What's wrong is our way of looking at it.”

Henry Miller book Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

Source: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957), p. 351

World, Way

“I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Source: Maxims of James Abram Garfield (1880), compiled by William Ralston Balch, p. 1

“A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory.”

China Miéville Embassytown

Source: “And there aren’t any.”
“Mmm,” I said. “Awkward.”
“That’s defeatist talk. I’ll cobble something together. A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory.”
Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter 0.3 (p. 37)

Way

“Wipe out the imagination. Stop pulling the strings. Confine thyself to the present. ...Divide and distribute every object into the causal [formal] and the material. ...Let the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 29

Imagination

“We got to get our democracy in order at home, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Two wrongs do not make a right.”

Michael McFaul (1963) American academic and diplomat

"Former U.S. Ambassador To Russia On The Arrest Of Russian Opposition Leader" in NPR https://www.npr.org/2021/01/18/958120724/former-u-s-ambassador-to-russia-on-the-arrest-of-russian-opposition-leader (18 January 2021)

Democracy, Home, Time

“Some of us in those days thought that we had actually identified a disease, which this clearly is not
To make people ill, to give them an illness, was the wrong thing
The fundamental problem is that the improvement that you see, which is not really great in clinical trials, is not maintained”

Frederick Wolfe (1936) researcher ORCID ID = 0000-0002-2801-6413

Source: "Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?" https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14pain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, New York Times (14 January 2008)

People, Disease, Problem

“Don’t kid yourself into believing that’s why we lost. It’s not. I’ll tell you openly. I'm not wrong.”

Dan Crenshaw (1984) U.S. Representative from Texas

Source: 12 August 2021 https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/going-viral-rep-dan-crenshaw-tells-supporters-dont-kid-2020-election-absolutely-not-stolen-election-video-rinoreveal/

“I was dragged into this and really wronged, but the truth will come out one day.”

Bo Xilai (1949) former Politburo member of the Communist Party of China

Source: "Disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai anticipated prison in letter to family" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/world/asia/china-bo-xilai-letter/index.html (23 September 2013)

Truth

“I supported the ostriches, what's wrong with that? They just lived there. What am I supposed to do, go around with my eyes closed?”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: "Viktor Yanukovych accepts blame for Ukraine bloodshed, defends zoo" in The Sydney Morning Herald https://www.smh.com.au/world/viktor-yanukovych-accepts-blame-for-ukraine-bloodshed-defends-zoo-at-his-residence-20150623-ghvvj9.html (24 June 2015)

Support

“There is no right or wrong method (for party's primary election). As long as we choose the most appropriate method at the time, that is the right method.”

Eric Chu (1961) Taiwanese politician

Source: Eric Chu (2019) cited in " Eric Chu vies against KMT chair over primary rules http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2019/01/06/2003707456" on Taipei Times, 6 January 2019.

Time

“If anything goes wrong with the Supreme Court, we are in trouble. If anything goes wrong with the court, we are in trouble.”

Folake Solanke (1932) Nigerian lawyer

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6lqx-jLCac Folake Solanke speaks on the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

“I think empathy is not learned. Maybe I’m wrong, but in my experience it’s not.”

Nanfu Wang (1985) director and filmmaker

Source: "Interview with “In the Same Breath” Director Nanfu Wang" in Film Festival Today https://filmfestivaltoday.com/interviews/interview-with-in-the-same-breath-director-nanfu-wang (23 August 2021)

Thinking, Learning

“Carrying a loaded gun into a community 20 miles from your home and shooting unarmed citizens is fundamentally wrong.”

Kyle Rittenhouse (2003) former suspect in the killing of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin

Source: 19 November 2021 tweet https://twitter.com/GovPritzker/status/1461802665986465797 by Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker

Home, Communication

“Some of us got this feeling stuck inside, all the time, like we’ve done something wrong. Like we ourselves are something wrong … We drink alcohol because it helps us feel like we can be ourselves and not be afraid. But we punish ourselves with it.”

Tommy Orange book There There

There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo, There There by Tommy Orange review – Native American stories, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/18/there-there-tommy-orange-review, 9 August 2018, The Guardian, July 18, 2018]

Alcohol, Feeling, Drink, Time

“Those who translate Pistis by "Faith," are utterly wrong. The word "faith" as grace or something to be believed in through unreasoned or blind faith, is a word that dates only since Christianity.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book The Key to Theosophy

Source: The Key to Theosophy (1889)

Faith

“Anything that can go wrong with armed men in the light can go twice as wrong in the dark.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 12, “It Don’t Mean a Thing” (p. 265)

Men, Light

“Matrimony is not something to rush into and I intend to live by that I will not fall for the pressure of marriage because if I do and in the end something goes wrong the same people he asked me why I didn't take my time.”

Omawumi (1982) Nigerian musician and actress

Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=omawumi+quotes&oq=omawumi+quotes&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i333.16116j0j9&client=ms-android-transsion-tecno-rev1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=hyG_87kHKMqoHM Omawunmi talking about marriage.

Marriage, People, Time

“The piano ain't got no wrong notes.”

Thelonious Monk (1917–1982) American jazz pianist and composer

Attributed by WKCR jazz host Phil Schaap, after a guest commented on how Monk played a lot of "wrong" notes. (March 1976) Source: Evan Spring, Phil Schaap Interview https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/wkcr/content/phil-schaap-interview, WKCR, 5 October, 1992

“if we get it wrong we will be punished”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Source: Theresa May on why Boris Johnson speech made her cross https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45722675, BBC News, 2 October 2018

“The EU is 50 years old, it is going in the wrong direction. It is time for real reform. The only way to get that is to leave.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Source: Boris Johnson: EU exit 'win-win for us all' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35783049 BBC News (11 March 2016)

Way, Time

“[I]mpeachment does not require proof of a crime... The argument that only criminal offenses are impeachable is deeply and profoundly wrong. It misunderstands the Constitution, U.S. history, and the nature of criminal law in important ways.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

To End a Presidency (2018)

Law, Way, History, Nature

“Instead of fearing what could go wrong. Fear what happens if you never try.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

Fear

“People get the wrong idea about me, they think I'm depressed or something - I'm not depressed. I don't wish that I was dead, I wish... that you were all dead.”

Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian

Stand-up, Excited for You to See and Hate This (2020)

People, Idea, Thinking, Dead

“We can now understand fully how wrong it would be to look at transference in a totally derogatory way when it fulfills such vital drives toward human wholeness. Man needs to infuse his life with value so that he can pronounce it “good.””

Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death

The transference-object is then a natural fetishization for man’s highest yearnings and strivings. Again we see what a marvelous “talent” transference is. It is a form of creative fetishism, the establishment of a locus from which our lives can draw the powers they need and want. What is more wanted than immortality-power? How wonderful and how facile to be able to take our whole immortality-striving and make it part of a dialogue with a single human being. We don’t know, on this planet, what the universe wants from us or is prepared to give us. We don’t have an answer to the question that troubled Kant of what our duty is, what we should be doing on earth. We live in utter darkness about who we are and why we are here, yet we know it must have some meaning. What is more natural, then, than to take this unspeakable mystery and dispel it straightaway by addressing our performance of heroics to another human being, knowing thus daily whether this performance is good enough to earn us eternity. If it is bad, we know that it is bad by his reactions and so are able instantly to change it.
Source: The Denial of Death (1973), The Spell Cast by Persons—The Nexus of Unfreedom

Life, Way, Understanding

“Don’t get me wrong: I believe that people who circumcise for religious reasons should have the right to do so.”

Rod Dreher (1967) American journalist

2020s, Gary Shteyngart’s ‘Gentile Region’ (2021)

People

“From the looks you're giving me
I can tell, as well see
if I've done something you think's wrong:
no words need be conveyed.
Then again, when we embrace,
from the look that's on your face
if heaven is a place on earth
right here is where it's been.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"No Way" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "No Way" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mPUlZ4vRE (song on YouTube)

Thinking

“All designs are wrong, it's just a matter of how wrong.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Source: Said while giving tour of Starbase to Tim Dodd, July 30, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw

“No use weepin' when the milk is spilled,
No use growlin' when your hopes are killed,
No use kickin' when the lightnin' strikes
Or the floods come along an' wreck your dykes;
Only thing for a man right then
Is to grit his teeth an' start again.For it's how life is an' the way things are
That you've got to face if you travel far;
An' the storms will come an' the failures, too,
An' plans go wrong spite of all you do;
An' the only thing that will help you win,
Is the grit of a man and a stern set chin.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: When Day is Done (1921), No Use Sighin' , stanzas 3 and 4.

Life, Hope, Way, Travel

“There will always be something to do, my boy;
There will always be wrongs to right;
There will always be need for a manly breed
And men unafraid to fight.
There will always be honor to guard, my boy;
There will always be hills to climb,
And tasks to do, and battles new
From now to the end of time.There will always be dangers to face, my boy;
There will always be goals to take;
Men shall be tried, when the roads divide,
And proved by the choice they make.
There will always be burdens to bear, my boy;
There will always be need to pray;
There will always be tears through the future years,
As loved ones are borne away.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: The Path to Home (1919), p.119 - There Will Always Be Something To Do, stanzas 1 and 2.

Love, Men, Boy, Tear

“When hope lies dead—ah, when 'tis death to live,
And wrongs remembered make the heart still bleed,
Better are Sleep's kind lies for Life's blind need
Than truth, if lies a little peace can give.”

Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) English literary critic and poet

"Prophetic Pictures at Venice II: The Temptation", p. 199.
The Coming of Love and Other Poems (1897)

Life, Death, Truth, Peace

“They are entitled to their opinion, but they suffer from the notable disadvantage of being completely wrong.”

John Bercow (1963) British politician and Speaker of the House of Commons (born 1963)

Addressing the House of Commons shortly after announcing his resignation as speaker
2019
Source: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/john-bercow-s-seething-contempt-for-brexiteers

Suffering

“Right fights while wrong rests.”

- Goa

Fight

“If I get something wrong or if I'm late it's an act of wilfulness. This is not the case; it's disorganisation on my part.”

Benedict Cumberbatch (1976) English actor and film producer

"The 5-minute Interview: Benedict Cumberbatch, Actor" in The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/the-5minute-interview-benedict-cumberbatch-actor-779150.html (7 February 2008)

Parting

“Logic is a way of going wrong systematically.”

Charles Kettering (1876–1958) American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 140 patents

As quoted in [Heinich, Robert, Robert Heinich, 1970, Technology and the Management of Instruction - Monograph 4, https://books.google.com/books?id=l_wnDwAAQBAJ, Information Age Publishing, 2000, Greenwich, Connecticut, 34, 9781607529736, 6 May 2020, [...] Kettering's comment, 'Logic is a way of going wrong systematically' [...].]

Way