A Quote by Michael Ignatieff

In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual's responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician's responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm. Michael Ignatieff, a former professor at Harvard and contributing writer for the magazine, is a member of Canada's Parliament and deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

Michael Ignatieff

Quote Topics

Academic Academic Life Canada Consequences Contributing Deputy Doing False Follow Former Fun Harm Harvard His Ideas Intellectual Lead Leader Liberal Liberal Party Life Lives Magazine Master May Member Merely Michael Millions Parliament Party Play Political Political Life Politician Precious Prevent Professor Resources Responsibility Ruin Them Those Useless Waste Wherever Writer

Quote Author

Michael Ignatieff
Canadian - Politician
Born: May 12, 1947

In academic life, false ideas are merely false, and useless ones can be fun to play with.

Michael Ignatieff

It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I suppose I've become less judgmental about individuals leading lives according to false ideas and false consciousness, because sometimes entire societies are prey to false ideologies and national delusions.

Pankaj Mishra

Most of the world's religions serve only to strengthen attachments to false concepts such as self and other, life and death, heaven and earth, and so on. Those who become entangled in these false ideas are prevented from perceiving the Integral Oneness.

Laozi

Very much of what we call the progress of today consists in getting rid of false ideas, false conceptions of things, and in taking a point of view that enables us to see the principles, ideas and things in right relation to each other.

William D. Hoard

False rhetoric and false boastfulness spell moral ruin and lead unfailingly to political extinction.

Vladimir Lenin

True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.

William James

True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot

William James

What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.

Karl Popper

Because you see darling, darling, there are no false questions. All questions in life are true questions. Answers may be false, but questions cannot be false. Sure,they can be dumb, they can be stupid, but never false.

Raymond Federman

Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren't any.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

These are ideas. I could say that they just came to me, but it would be more accurate to say that I went to them. Ideas - and new connections between ideas - lead you away from commonly held perceptions of reality. Ideas lead you out here. Ideas lead you into the darkness.

Dave Sim

Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.

Alfred Whitney Griswold

Ideas have consequences, and totally erroneous ideas are likely to have destructive consequences.

Steve Allen

I learned about choices and consequences and responsibility. I learned that we all have choices, even when we don't recognize them, and that those choices have consequences, not just for ourselves, but for others. We must assume responsibility for those consequences.