About this quote

Repetition has a way of dressing a falsehood up as fact, while a quiet truth can sit ignored for years without becoming any less true. What's real doesn't take a vote. Counting how many people believe a claim tells you about the crowd, not about whether the claim holds.

When to use it

• A lone engineer flags a design flaw the whole team dismissed, and the later failure proves he was right.
• A viral health myth shared by millions still collapses when a careful study finally puts it to the test.
• A historian's overlooked correction to a popular story turns out accurate decades before anyone credits it.