James Garfield on truth and error

I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.

~ James Garfield

James Garfield
1898

Erich Fromm on avoiding the crowd

The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.

~ Erich Fromm, The Sane Society

Charles Mackay on learning from the mistakes of the past

Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive.

~ Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

George Washington on learning from the past

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

~ George Washington

Nassim Taleb on error's relationship to fragility and robustness

For the robust, an error is information; for the fragile, an error is an error.

~ Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes, p. 72