Facts N Quotes & Sayings

There is some advantage in having imagination, since that visionary faculty opens the mental eyes to facts that more practical and duller intellects could never see. — E.D.E.N. Southworth

By extrapolating a little from Freud, it becomes possible to think of nationalism as a kind of narcissism. A nationalist takes the neutral facts about a people - their language, habitat, culture, tradition and history- and turns these facts into a narrative, whose purpose is to illuminate the self-consciousness of a group, to enable them to think of themselves as a nation with a claim to self-determination. A nationalist, in other words, takes "minor differences"- indifferent in themselves- and transforms them into major differences. For this purpose, traditions are invented, a glorious past is gilded and refurbished for public consumption, and a people who might not have thought of themselves as a people at all suddenly begin to dream of themselves as a nation. — Michael Ignatieff

If certain Jewish communities had distinctive qualities, they were due to history, not biology. — Shlomo Sand

Feelings could override facts, as facts could alter feelings. Choose the truth first, rather than following after feelings. — Anthony Liccione

One of the reasons we do history, in fact, is because it acts as a brake, a control, on our otherwise unbridled enthusiasm for our own ideas. — N. T. Wright

Ability to persevere begins with you, the individual. However, change is rarely easy. In fact, sometimes it is downright formidable. — Paul G. Stoltz

Cynics know the answers without having penetrated deeply enough to know the questions. When challenged by mysterious truths, they marshall 'facts. — Marilyn Ferguson

One can get closer to reality and the facts by using words, questions and answers. — Sandor Marai

The sad truth is that... many people are, in fact- stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because they are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. Some people's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. — Jose N. Harris

When we separate the word business into its component letters, B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S, we find that U and I are both in it. In fact, if U and I were not in business, it would not be business. Furthermore, we discover that U comes before I in business and the I is silent-it is to be seen, not heard. Also, the U in business has the sound of I, which indicates it is an amalgamation of the interests of U and I. When they are properly amalgamated, business becomes harmonious, profitable, and pleasant. — Zig Ziglar

The outright propagandist sets up in me such a fury of opposition I am not apt to care much whether he has got his facts straight or not. He is like someone standing on your toes between you and an open window, describing the view to you. All I ask of him to do is to open the window, stand out of the way, and let me look at the view for myself. — Katherine Anne Porter

It must never be lost sight of what observation is for. It is not for the sake of piling up miscellaneous information or curious facts, but for the sake of saving life and increasing health and comfort — Katharine Kolcaba

I came into my teens unaware that most Americans, blacks as well as whites, were ignorant of the main facts of Negro history. And so it was the facts of other histories that I found most intriguing. I fell into a U.S. history major by chance late in my second year at Fisk University. — David Levering Lewis

I have always believed and promoted the fact that education and access to the knowledge society involves lifelong learning. — Ken Wyatt

Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices. — Barbara Mertz

The sad fact is that the vast majority of drunks stay drunks. There's a small minority of us who reach that fork in the road where one side says 'live' and the other says 'drink'. — John Larroquette

Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision. — Thomas Sowell

The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events undecided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting? — Samuel Richardson

Most philosophers do not want intellectual matters to reduce to a question of morality (obedience or rebellion to God's Word). They want to hold the intellect or reason to be above matters of moral volition. They hold that truth is obtainable and testable no matter what ethical condition the thinker is in.
Hence, they maintain that all disputes must be rationally resolvable, and a rational case for a philosophic position relies on a valid chain of discursive argumentation that takes us back to incontestable first principles or facts. — Greg L. Bahnsen

When you talk to a Republican, many of them just outright say, 'Yeah. Climate change isn't real,' without assessing the facts, and it's a big problem. It's not a red or blue issue, it's a green issue ... Not because of facts or science but because of emotion. — Philippe Cousteau Jr.

Your pillow alone may be home to 40 million bed mites. (To them your head is just one large oily bon-bon). And don't think a clean pillow-case will make a difference ... Indeed, if your pillow is six years old
which is apparently about the average age for a pillow
it has been estimated that one-tenth of its weight will be made up of sloughed skin, living mites, dead mites and mite dung. — Bill Bryson

In the New Testament outside the Gospels and the beginning of Acts, again and again, the fact of Jesus' resurrection is closely linked to our own ultimate resurrection, which isn't life after death - it's life after life after death. — N. T. Wright

But facts are facts and flinch not. — Robert Browning

Confidence is the feeling we have before knowing all the facts — John Dryden

If it weren't for Criminal Records, Wax-n-facts and other indie record stores I could have only sold my CD's at my shows and by mail order as an independent artist. The greatest stores that have character and include a much wider range of music of music are all independent, mom and pop stores. — Shawn Mullins

It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies can never be alone, though one is justified by faith alone, the faith which justifies is never in fact alone. — N. T. Wright

The urge to find the real facts is destructive only to people or systems (friendships, family dynamics, political dynasties) that are based on lies. The truth can scare you half to death, but it's never as destructive as deception. — Martha N. Beck

Lawsuits are rare and catastrophic experiences for the vast majority of men, and even when the catastrophe ensues, the controversy relates most often not to the law, but to the facts. In countless litigations, the law Is so clear that judges have no discretion. — Benjamin N. Cardozo

One thing that gets lost in all the aggregation throughout this book: on an individual level, the personal affects of these broad social forces are often very subtle... when you go person by person, any individual's experience is too small and too varied to conclusively say anything racial has happened. It could be your skin or it could be just you. On the other side of it, it's laughable to think of one red-faced guy searching for n****r jokes because Barak Obama got elected, but it's a lot less funny when you can see that he's one of thousands and thousands making the same search. And it's less funny still when you see the large affects these private attitudes can still have, even in public life. Thus the story of just one of us versus the story of us all. That's why data like this is necessary; it ends arguments that anecdotes could never win. It provides facts that need facing. — Christian Rudder

[N]ot only is the most marvellous event in this book collaborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages. — Herman Melville

In fact, if we cut 50 percent of the liver out, it'll be back in two weeks. — Sangeeta N. Bhatia

PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation ... Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy. — Ambrose Bierce

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership. — Ambrose Bierce

An appetite for knowledge is apt to rush one off one's feet, like any other appetite if not curbed. I often stand in the in the centre of the Library here and think despairingly how impossible it is ever to become possessed of all the wealth of facts and ideas contained in the books surrounding me on every hand. — W.N.P. Barbellion

NAEP data show beyond question that test scores in reading and math have improved for almost every group of students over the past two decades; slowly and steadily in the case of reading, dramatically in the case of mathematics. Students know more and can do more in these two basic skills subjects now than they could twenty or forty years ago... So the next time you hear someone say that the system is "broken," that American students aren't as well educated as they used to be, that our schools are failing, tell that person the facts. — Diane Ravitch

Fears are not facts. — Chaz Bono

The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employer's wealth, the artist who envies a rival's higher talent - they're all wishing facts out of existence and destruction is the only means of their wish. If they pursue it, they will not achieve a market, a fortune, or an immortal fame - they will merely destroy production — Ayn Rand

Everything we have and everything we enjoy, including our very life, is due to the kindness of others. In fact, every happiness there is in the world arises as a result of others' kindness. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

The very word "sorrow" colours the fact of sorrow, the pain of it. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Darwin investigated the numerous facts obtained by naturalists in living nature and analysed them through the prism of practical experience. — Trofim Lysenko

Built into bad news is that sense of profound disbelief. The mind struggles to absorb the bare facts, defending itself against the larger implications. — Sue Grafton

The Greeks not only face facts. They have no desire to escape from them. — Edith Hamilton

Science is a lie in day-light, with a lot witnesses. Religion is a truth in darkness, without any need for such witness! — Thiruman Archunan

The death rate is a fact; anything beyond this is an inference. — William Farr

The close observer soon discovers that the teacher's task is not to implant facts but to place the subject to be learned in front of the learner and, through sympathy, emotion, imagination, and patience, to awaken in the learner the restless drive for answers and insights which enlarge the personal life and give it meaning. — Nathan M. Pusey

The world is not a great place because racist people come with a race type of agenda, and it don't make the world great, it makes it worst than ever. — Werley Nortreus

It seems everyone is converging on a simple set of facts: Our lives are digital, and we wish to share our lives. Pinterest came at it through images, artfully curated. Facebook came at it through friends, cunningly organized. Dropbox came to it via files, cleverly clouded. — John Battelle

Real intelligence is a creative use of knowledge, not merely an accumulation of facts. The slow thinker who can finally come up with an idea of his own is more important to the world than a walking encyclopedia who hasn't learned how to use this information productively. — Susan Winebrenner

My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of facts; my book is more like a collection of Ready-mades. — Edward Ruscha

State a benefit in your headline that clearly enhances their life, using power words like: Announcing, Breakthrough, Discover, Facts, New, Now, Sale, Yes, You, Free, Fast, Easy, Proven, Guaranteed, How to, Save, Increase, Secret, More, 54% (or any specific percentage of increase or decrease) — Jim McCraigh

I know about an actual murder over a watch, it's in all the newspapers now. If a writer had invented it, the critics and connoisseurs of popular life would have shouted at once that it was incredible; but reading it in the newspapers as a fact, you feel that it is precisely from such facts that you learn about Russian reality. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Facts are stupid things. — Ronald Reagan

Facts are such horrid things! — Jane Austen

[About describing atomic models in the language of classical physics:]
We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections. — Niels Bohr

People have been brainwashed into believing that it's got to be down or it wouldn't be blues. But it's not so. It's got to be a fact or it wouldn't be blues. — Willie Dixon

Childhood hunger in America is as much a paradox as it is a tragedy. Why, in the wealthiest country in the world, should hunger darken the lives and dreams of 12 million children and their families? I believe that, when Americans learn the facts and understand how their involvement can make a difference, banishing childhood hunger will be a national, local and personal priority. — Martin Sheen

The great fact is, that life is a service. The only question is, Whom will we serve? — Frederick William Faber

We lose track of everything, and of everyone, even ourselves. The facts of my father's life are less known to me than those of the life of Hadrian. My own existence, if I had to write of it, would be reconstructed by me from externals, laboriously, as if it were the life of someone else: I should have to turn to letters, and to the recollections of others, in order to clarify such uncertain memories. What is ever left but crumbled walls, or masses of shade? — Marguerite Yourcenar

One hears a lot of talk about the hostility between scientists and engineers. I don't believe in any such thing. In fact I am quite certain it is untrue ... There cannot possibly be anything in it because neither side has anything to do with the other. — David Hilbert

Gnosis is lived upon facts, withers away in abstractions, and is difficult to find even in the noblest of thoughts. — Samael Aun Weor