Echoes

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

It is not truth that makes man great, but man that makes truth great.

Do not go by revelation; Do not go by tradition; Do not go by hearsay; Do not go on the authority of sacred texts; Do not go on the grounds of pure logic; Do not go by a view that seems rational; Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances; Do not go along with a considered view because you agree with it; Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent; Do not go along because "the recluse is our teacher." Kalamas, when you yourselves know: These things are unwholesome, these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; and when undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them... Kalamas, when you know for yourselves: These are wholesome; these things are not blameworthy; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness, having undertaken them, abide in them.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

You are neither right nor wrong because people agree with you.

Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss whatever insults your own soul.

A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.

Learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.

Time's glory is to calm contending kings,To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.

Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides.

I rely on two precedents: first, to similar cases our Sages applied the verse, "It is time to do something in honour of the Lord: for they have made void thy law"... Secondly, they have said, "Let all thy acts be guided by pure intentions." ...Lastly, when I have a difficult subject before me—when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools—I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace.

I know that I know nothing.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all.

Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth.

Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized. And there is plenty of it left even for posterity to discover.

He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.

He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is himself a prophet; no statute book, for he hath the Lawgiver; no money, for he is value itself; no road, for he is at home where he is.

Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but truth is a greater friend.

If thou desire to profit, read with humility, simplicity, and faithfulness; nor even desire the repute of learning.