The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth - that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.

Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.

And in it all, where did the truth end and error begin?

In science, mistakes always precede the truth.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.

learning” is the oldest excuse in the book for a failure of execution.

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there.

Loss is as old as life itself. But for all our evolution, we are yet to accept it.

making some types of errors is the most rational thing to do, when the errors are of little cost, as they lead to discoveries. For instance, most medical “discoveries”are accidental to something else. An error-free world would have no penicillin, no chemotherapy…almost no drugs, and most probably no humans. This is why I have been against the state dictating to us what we “should”be doing: only evolution knows if the “wrong”thing is really wrong, provided there is skin in the game to allow for selection.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.

(<i>Young India</i> 1924-1926)

There is nothing more ancient than the truth.

The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it.

Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.