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About this quote

What does it mean?
Truth emerges more easily from correcting errors than from chaotic confusion.
In plain terms
Fix errors rather than just creating confusion to find truth.
What can you take from it?
Clarity helps truth emerge more than chaos.

Where it applies

  • debate
  • scientific method
  • problem solving

Putting it to work

  • clarify assumptions
  • identify specific errors

Questions to consider

  • Is truth harder to find in chaos?
  • How do errors help discovery?

Another view

Sometimes confusion precedes insight.

More from Francis Bacon

  1. Truth therefore and utility are here the very same thing:

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  2. Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (…

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  3. There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pu…

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