WIST Quotations

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas -- The Black Swan, Part 1, ch. 5 “Confirmation Shmonfirmation!” (2007)

Dave — Mon, 12 May 2025 18:00:07 +0000

But it remains the case that you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (b. 1960) Lebanese-American essayist, statistician, risk analyst, aphorist
The Black Swan, Part 1, ch. 5 “Confirmation Shmonfirmation!” (2007)
(Source)

Milligan, Spike -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:16:38 +0000

We haven’t got a plan, so nothing can go wrong!

Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (1918-2002) Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, actor
(Attributed)

Variants:

"We don't have a plan, so nothing can go wrong!"
"We haven't any plan, so nothing can go wrong!"

Moliere -- George Dandin, or the Confounded Husband [oui le Mari confondu], Act 1, sc. 7 (1668)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

DANDIN: It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.

[J’enrage de bon cœur d’avoir tort, lorsque j’ai raison.]

Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
George Dandin, or the Confounded Husband [oui le Mari confondu], Act 1, sc. 7 (1668)
(Source)

This unsourced translation is widely attributed to Molière, but almost never with a citation to a particular play.

Interestingly, in context, this aside is not about stubbornly sticking to a point, even when demonstrably incorrect. In Dandin's case, he's complaining about how his righteous accusation of his wife being unfaithful has been turned around by others into him being the offending party. This is clearer in some of the translations below.

As with so many Molière plays, the attribution to scene 7 can vary between translations.

(Source (French)). Other translations:

I'm vex'd at my Heart to be found Fault with when I am in the Right.
[Source (1748)]

It makes me mad to be put in the wrong, when I am in the right.
[tr. Van Laun (1860?)]

I shall go mad at thus being made to be wrong when I am right.
[tr. Wall (1876)]

It makes me savage to seem wrong when I am right.
[tr. Wormeley (1894)]

I am wild at being put in the wrong when I am right.
[tr. Waller (1907)]

This tears me open: to be in the wrong when I'm right.
[tr. Bermel (1987)]

Keynes, John Maynard -- (Misttributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

It is better to be roughly right than to be precisely wrong.

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist
(Misttributed)

Not attributed to Keynes until after his death. Actually from Carveth Read, Logic, deductive and inductive (1898): "It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong."

Pauli, Wolfgang -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong.

[Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!]

Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) American physicist
(Attributed)

Quoted by R. Peierls in “Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, 1900-1958,″ Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (1960): “... a friend showed him the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli’s views. Pauli remarked sadly ‘That’s not right. It’s not even wrong.’” More discussion here.