Demonstrably False Quotes & Sayings

With women the best aphrodisiac is words. — Isabel Allende

I don't dream about anyone - except myself — Steven Morrissey

The writer, the poet, the novelist, are all creators. This does not mean that they invent language; it means that they use language to create beauty, ideas, images. This is why we cannot do without them. — J.M.G. Le Clezio

I think I'd probably tell you that it's easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us. — William Gibson

We speak of self-fulfilling prophecies, but any belief that is acted on makes the world in its image. Beliefs matter. And so do the facts behind them. The astonishing gap between common beliefs and actualities about disaster behavior limits the possibilities, and changing beliefs could fundamentally change much more. Horrible in itself, disaster is sometimes a door back into paradise, that paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be, do the work we desire, and are each our sister's and brother's keeper. — Rebecca Solnit

What did trust, cooperation, progressive taxation and the interventionist state bequeath to western societies in the decades following 1945? The short answer is, in varying degrees, security, prosperity, social services and greater equality. We have grown accustomed in recent years to the assertion that the price paid for these benefits - in economic inefficiency, insufficient innovation, stifled entrepreneurship, public debt and a loss of private initiative - was too high. Most of these criticisms are demonstrably false. — Tony Judt

As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions. — Gertrude Himmelfarb

All religions are sick men's dreams, false - demonstrably false - and pernicious. — Ibn Warraq

Our security doesn't come from turning away from the hard stuff; it comes from the knowledge that we can handle it. — Tim DeChristopher

Love begins with listening. — Fred Rogers

Appropriated to justice, to security, to reason, to restraint; where there is no respect of persons; where will is nothing and power is nothing and numbers are nothing, and all are equal and all secure before the law. — Rufus Choate

You're cranky because you're tired," Amos said. "You got that I-have-to-save-everyone hangup, so I make it that you haven't slept in about two days. But listening to people bitch? Yeah, that's sorta your job. It's why you make the big money." "We make the same money." "Then I guess you're doing it for the fame and glory." "I hate you," Holden said. — James S.A. Corey

And there was a wonderful thing that tended to happen, something that felt like poetic justice: every time someone started shouting about the supposed monopoly of the Circle, or the Circle's unfair monetization of the personal data of its users, or some other paranoid and demonstrably false claim, soon enough it was revealed that that person was a criminal or deviant of the highest order. One was connected to a terror network in Iran. One was a buyer of child porn. Every time, it seemed, they would end up on the news, footage of investigators leaving their homes with computers, on which any number of unspeakable searches had been executed and where reams of illegal and inappropriate materials were stored. And it made sense. Who but a fringe character would try to impede the unimpeachable improvement of the world? — Dave Eggers

Every time someone started shouting about the supposed monopoly of the Circle, or the Circle's unfair monetization of the personal data of its users, or some other paranoid and demonstrably false claim, soon enough it was revealed that that person was a criminal or deviant of the highest order. — Dave Eggers

If you can't avoid it, there is no use denying it by delaying it. — Sartika Kurniali

Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false. — E. O. Wilson

You can't kill the past by denying the past. You can kill it only by making it obsolete. And even in that, you have to find honor in the past. You can't hack off pieces of yourself, and expect them to grow again. — Jeff Buckley