Quote#Success & Failure
Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false…
Quote byWilliam Whewell · 1794–1866
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England, Lecture 7. (1852).
English (original)
Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.
— William Whewell
More from William Whewell
Facts are the materials of science, but all Facts involve Ideas. Since, in observing Facts, we cannot exclude Ideas, we must, for the purposes of science, take care that the Ideas are clear and rigorously applied.
Coexistent polarities are fundamentally identical.
We perceive by 'means' of a medium and 'by means' of impressions on the nerves: but we do not (by our senses,) perceive either the medium or the impressions on the nerves.
The Sight cannot decompose a compound colour into simple colours, or distinguish a compound from a simple colour
The solution is, that we do not see the image on the retina at all, we only see by means of it.
When a series of progressive numbers is given as the result of observation, it may generally be reduced to law by combinations of arithmetical and geometrical progressions. A true formula for a progressive series of numbers cannot commonly …