The interest in truth, which may be presumed to have been their only motive when they stated the proposition alleged to be true, now gives way to the interests of vanity: and so, for the sake of vanity, what is true must seem false, and what is false must seem true. They speak before they think and even though they may afterwards perceive that they are wrong, and that what they assert is false, they want it to seem the contrary. But, with most men, innate vanity is accompanied by loquacity and innate dishonesty. For this a man would have to think before he spoke. The way out of this difficulty would be simply to take the trouble always to form a correct judgment. This translation was first published in 1897. sister projects: Wikipedia article, Commons category, Wikidata item. Our innate vanity, which is particularly sensitive in reference to our intellectual powers, will not suffer us to allow that our first position was wrong and our adversary’s right. by Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders. That we should regard as a matter of no moment, or, at any rate, of very secondary consequence but, as things are, it is the main concern. “If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honorable, we should in every debate have no other aim than the discovery of truth we should not in the least care whether the truth proved to be in favor of the opinion which we had begun by expressing, or of the opinion of our adversary. Photographers Unknown, The Parts and Pieces Making a Whole: Set Eight
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