Lord Acton Quotes

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.

Error is a hardy plant: it flourisheth in every soil.

… fear false knowledge

Whatever is almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is more likely to lead astray.

Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.

Error is always more busy than truth.

An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.

Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error.

Most of what we know or assume to know is wrong one way or another.

Antithesis is the narrow gateway through which error most prefers to worm its way towards truth.

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it's that they know so many things that just aren't so.

Mistakes live in the neighbourhood of truth and therefore delude us.

Truth must be repeated again and again, because error is constantly being preached round about.

It is not only not right, it is not even wrong.

Error is worse than ignorance.

Truth is one, but error is manifold.

Truth possesses within herself a penetrating force, unknown alike to error and falsehood. I say 'truth' and you understand my meaning. For the beautiful words truth and justice need not to be defined in order to be understood in their true sense.

The trouble with most of us is that we know too much that ain't so.

It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is better to stand alone with the truth, than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one Gospel.

Most burning issues generate far more heat than light.

Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both.

There is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato's description of the Supreme Being,--that truth is His body and light His shadow. According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.

I believe that politicians should speak the truth all the time. Invariably there will be occasions when you make statements that are factually incorrect due to an error.

Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.