Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Learning requires distinguishing useful insights from errors rather than just spotting mistakes.
In plain terms
To learn, you must understand the difference between right and wrong info.
What can you take from it?
Distinguish useful from erroneous information to truly learn.

Where it applies

  • education
  • debate
  • problem-solving

Putting it to work

  • verify sources
  • analyze feedback
  • avoid confirmation bias

Questions to consider

  • What counts as useful information?
  • How do you know you are learning?

Another view

Spotting mistakes is often the first step to learning.

More from Orson Scott Card

  1. Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.

    Permalink to quote #1107
  2. [They] have a higher allegiance to their own conscience than to the rules others set down for them. It's a failing, if your object is to maintain order, but if…

    Permalink to quote #1109
  3. It's the middle class that feels the luxury of being able to have causes.

    Permalink to quote #1106

Related quotes

  1. Erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

    Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce quote #34
  2. The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be rooted out; not any particular manifestation of that …

    John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill quote #1
  3. Life is not a thing of knowing only - nay, mere knowledge has properly no place at all save as it becomes the handmaiden of feeling and emotion.

    Learned HandLearned Hand quote #1