| Author | Source | Quote
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| Isaac Asimov | ? | Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
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| Stephen Hawkings | ?, 1995 | “The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies.”
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| RW Scott | History of Orange County, 1907 | Name after name of places and people once locally historic has passed into oblivion and beyond the reach of the investigator. Regret is vain, and can not restore what is lost; my effort has been to save what is left, and to perpetuate it for posterity.
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| - | Epistle of Jude, 1:10: | "Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them."
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| No idea | No idea, but it gets lots of Google hits | "My mind is like a steel trap---once something gets caught in there, it may never see the light of day again"---unless I've put it into WeRelate. (G).
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| Patrick Moynihan, US Senator | Commonly Quoted, need original Source | Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts"
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| Bernard of Chartruese | as quoted by John of Salisbury (1159AD) fide Wikipedia:John_of_Salisbury | We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.
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| Milton | Paradise Lost | The world was all before them where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide ;
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| Elizabeth Shown Mills | | "Most genealogists...do not write for journals. They write for their family and for posterity. They, too, have their special needs.
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| Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | Wind, sand and stars, 1939 | It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
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| Albert Einstein | On the Method of Theoretical Physics" The Herbert Spencer Lecture, [1] | Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler
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| Elizabeth Shown Mills | APG Rootsweb Mailing List, April 28, 2008 | The written word is a powerful thing. Mankind dies, but their writings don't!
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| Elizabeth Shown Mills | APG List June 24 2008 | It is advisable for any of us, when using a published abstract or
transcription of--say--a will, to seek out the original will to verify the
accuracy of the transcription. But there is a vast difference in the degree
of *authority*--and, consequently, reliability--between (a) John Doe's
published version of a will and (b) legal statutes published under the
direction and authority of the commonwealth. There's a difference in quality
control that went into the publication. There's a difference in the
consequences that would arise from errors in the publication.
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| Ed Henry, New Correspondant | Tony Snow tells CNN journalist to 'zip it' | Life is too short to get yourself all worked up about one tense exchange, one awkward moment or one misstep
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| Emory Hamilton | Hamilton's Atrocities | Perhaps the two families mentioned above will continue to be among the many, many who were killed or captured on the frontier, whose names are lost with the passage of time and history, and of whom the militia officers did not find time or compunction to mention by name.
I have exhausted every resource in trying to fit these unknown killings to known events, but with no success, due to the dirth of records on the frontier in early days. Outside the Draper MSS, Court Records, Militia letters and Revolutionary pension statements few records exist that gives any insight into frontier events concerning Indian atrocities, with the Court records only being useful where a name is known, that can be associated with a will or settlement of estate. The frontier was very fluid and transitory, with the people constantly moving on westward, and in many cases leaving behind no descendants who could give a traditional story of a family happening
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| Voltaire | Commonly quoted, but original source is not usually identified, and has not been located. | "It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere."
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| Elizbeth Shown Mills | 27 August 2008, APG Rootsweb Mailing list
| 1. Research should be thorough. Conclusions made before all relevant sources are consulted are highly prone to error.
2. Every statement of fact should have its own explicit statement of source. The validity of no piece of information can be weighed if one does not know exactly where it came from and the circumstances under which it was created.
3. Researchers should seek the best-quality sources (original records rather than derivative works, to every extent possible) and the best-quality information (firsthand information being generally more reliable than secondhand).
4. Conclusions should rest upon a correlation and analysis of all existing evidence, not just one document that makes a direct (explicit) statement of fact. Any one document can err.
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| Biblical | This seems to be based on Proverbs 11:24 "in the multitude of counsellors there is safety", but the version given here seems mor apt. | "In the multitude of council there is wisdom"
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| Walt Whitman, | Leaves of Grass suggested by User:Janiejac | Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?
Have you not learned the great lessons of those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you? or who treated you with contempt, or disputed the passage with you?
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| Ethan Siegel
| 7 May 2007
|
Once we choose our preferred conclusions, we frequently fool ourselves through ... motivated reasoning.
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