Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Stoppard notes that credibility expands to fit our expectations, often confirmed by hindsight.
In plain terms
We decide what is credible after it happens, not before.
What can you take from it?
Perception of truth often follows events rather than predicting them.

Where it applies

  • news analysis
  • decision making
  • investigation

Putting it to work

  • question initial judgments
  • delay conclusions

Questions to consider

  • How do we know truth?
  • Is hindsight always accurate?

Another view

It implies all credibility is subjective and unreliable.

More from Tom Stoppard

  1. It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting.

    Permalink to quote #10
  2. Dotty: Archie says the Church is a monument to irrationality. George: ... The National Gallery is a monument to irrationality! Every concert hall is a monument…

    Permalink to quote #12
  3. It was precisely this notion of infinite series which in the sixth century BC led the Greek philosopher Zeno to conclude that since an arrow shot towards a tar…

    Permalink to quote #9

Related quotes

  1. 'Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.' 'Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people …

    Zora Neale HurstonZora Neale Hurston quote #6
  2. And took for truth the test of ridicule.

    George CrabbeGeorge Crabbe quote #19
  3. 'Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear,' is a cynical saying, and yet less bitter than at first appears. It does not argue that human na…

    Dinah CraikDinah Craik quote #22