A Quote by Samuel Johnson

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Truth Evidence Power Sufficient

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

Of course, the main reason is the change of law in the way Germany has brought Nazi war criminals to trial. The previous rules was that you'd have to have tangible evidence, and documentary evidence was not sufficient.

Marvin Hier

Until recent times, absence of evidence for his [Jehovah's] existence has not been sufficient to rule him out. However, we now have enough knowledge that we can identify many places where there should be evidence, but there is not. The absence of that evidence allows us to rule out the existence of this God beyond a reasonable doubt.

Victor J. Stenger

... we are obliged to produce the truth by the power that demands truth and needs it in order to function: we are constrained, we are condemned to admit the truth or to discover it. Power constantly asks questions and questions us; it constantly investigates and records; it institutionalizes the search for the truth, professionalizes it, and rewards it. ... In a different sense, we are also subject to the truth in the sense that truth lays down the law: it is the discourse of truth that decides, at least in part; it conveys and propels effects of power.

Michel Foucault

The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting - it has been found demanding, and not tried.

John Baillie

Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error.

Thomas Jefferson

It's not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it operates at the present time

Michel Foucault

The role of the intellectual, so it is said, is to speak truth to power. Noam Chomsky has dismissed this pious tag on two grounds. For one thing, power knows the truth already; it is just busy trying to conceal it. For another, it is not those in power who need the truth, but those they oppress.

Terry Eagleton

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting--it has been found wanting, and not tried.

Os Guinness

The earth is supported by the power of truth; it is the power of truth that makes the sun shine and the winds blow; indeed all things rest upon truth.

Chanakya

One of the flabby lines you hear sometimes is, 'Speak truth to power'. Power knows the truth. It's speaking the truth to yourself that's the challenge.

Barry Sanders

To be alive is sufficient evidence that we are needed in the world. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

Margery Wilson

In the end, the truth always wins out. It always does, no matter how many times you tell a story that isn't true. In the end, the truth comes out. There's either video evidence or photographic evidence. I think the American people are smart consumers.

Gayle King

Finding truth involves some kind of activity. As I like to point out, truth isn't handed to you on a platter. It's not something that you get at a cafeteria, where they just put it on your plate. It's a search, a quest, an investigation, a continual process of looking at and looking for evidence, trying to figure out what the evidence means.

Errol Morris

Educated guesswork' is what science is. You form hypotheses, test them against the evidence, and if they fit the evidence, you can assume you've got close to the truth.