FIRST AND LAST THINGS (4 Books in One Edition). H. G. Wells

attitude.

      Of everything we need to say: this is true but it is not quite true.

      Of everything we need to say: this is true in relation to things in or near its plane, but not true of other things.

      Of everything we have to remember: this may be truer for us than for other people.

      In disputation particularly we have to remember this (and most with our antagonist): that the spirit of an utterance may be better than the phrase.

      We have to discourage the cheap tricks of controversy, the retort, the search for inconsistency. We have to realize that these things are as foolish and ill-bred and anti-social as shouting in conversation or making puns; and we have to work out habits of thought purged from the sin of assurance. We have to do this for our own good quite as much as for the sake of intercourse.

      All the great and important beliefs by which life is guided and determined are less of the nature of fact than of artistic expression.