QuoteProject
What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.
Benjamin Disraeli
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Truth and error can both appear earnest, but error may sometimes be more convincing than the truth.

This quote by Benjamin Disraeli highlights the complexity of truth and belief. It suggests that something that is earnest or serious in nature is not necessarily true; rather, errors and falsehoods can often come across with greater sincerity or conviction. This serves as a reminder to critically evaluate what we accept as truth, as the most passionate arguments are not always grounded in reality.

Themes

TruthErrorEarnestBeliefWisdom

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate, you might use this quote to illustrate that sometimes the most convincing arguments are not necessarily true.

More from Benjamin Disraeli

Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.
Benjamin DisraeliRead

Similar quotes

Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.
Sun TzuRead
Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around.
Winston ChurchillRead
I used to think that God's gifts were on shelves one above the other and that the taller we grew in Christian character, the more easily we should reach them. I find now that God's gifts are on shelves one beneath the other and that is not a question of growing taller, but of stooping lower and that we have to go down, always down to get His best ones.
F.B. MeyerRead
You possess only whatever will not be lost in a ship wreck.
Al-GhazaliRead
Most writers tend to get worse rather than better. I'm determined to be one that gets better.
Edmund WhiteRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.