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There is no pre-established harmony between the promotion of truth and the welfare of mankind.
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“There is no pre-established harmony between the promotion of truth and the welfare of mankind.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

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Source
Human, All-Too-Human
Date
1909
English wording
Helen Zimmern — Translator · from German
Meaning

Meaning of “There is no pre-established harmony between the promotion…”

Nietzsche rejects the comforting assumption that discovering truth must always coincide with human comfort or advantage.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 517, “A Fundamental Insight”; Helen Zimmern translation.

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Themes

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DeepHonestyHumanityMindPhilosophyShortThinking Quotes About Reasoning, Reflection & JudgmentThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionTruthReality
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The world is a perpetual caricature of itself.
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“The world is a perpetual caricature of itself.”

George Santayana · Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies · 1922
Meaning & context

Social appearances repeatedly exaggerate or contradict reality, making ordinary life look like an ongoing parody of its own pretensions.

Source details

Soliloquies in England, “Dickens”; Santayana uses caricature to describe the gap between living reality and conventional masks.

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To define is to limit.
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“To define is to limit.”

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray — 1891 edition · 1891
Voice: Fictional character · Lord Henry Wotton
Meaning & context

Definitions clarify ideas but can also narrow them, especially when a label is treated as the complete reality of a person or experience.

Source details

The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Chapter 17; Lord Henry answers the Duchess of Monmouth’s question “What are you?” with “To define is to limit.”

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Truth happens to an idea.
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“Truth happens to an idea.”

William James · Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking · 1907
Meaning & context

The compact formulation summarizes James’s pragmatic account in which an idea’s truth is connected with processes of verification and validation rather than treated only as a static label.

Source details

Pragmatism, Lecture VI, “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth”; Project Gutenberg #5116. Capitalization has been normalized from “Truth HAPPENS to an idea”; the surrounding passage explains verification and validation.

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Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know.
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“Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know.”

Michel de Montaigne · Essays of Montaigne — Book I · 1580
Meaning & context

Certainty can be strongest where understanding is weakest, so confidence by itself is poor evidence that a belief has been examined well.

Source details

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXXI, ‘That a Man Is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinances,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 06 #3586 / Complete Essays #3600. The sentence appears in Montaigne’s skeptical warning about confidence concerning unknown things and speculative claims about divine purposes.

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Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
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“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”

Friedrich Nietzsche · Human, All-Too-Human · 1909
Meaning & context

Nietzsche warns that fixed certainty can block revision more effectively than an obvious falsehood because conviction can make contrary evidence harder to examine.

Source details

Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 483, “The Enemies of Truth”; Helen Zimmern translation, 1909 edition.

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If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.
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“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · 1790
Meaning & context

Blake imagines habitual perception as a filter that narrows reality; cleansing it would reveal a less limited world.

Source details

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14; Blake’s prose-poetic argument about the limits and cleansing of perception.

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