Facts are the enemy of truth
 

It seems that everybody knows that this quotation comes from Don Quijote. Nobody gives a reference, and I'm beginning to suspect that it doesn't, and that it comes from an English theatre play based on Don Quijote by Dale Wassermann, called The Man from La Mancha. That would explain why I can't find anything like it in Cervantes.

This question was posed by someone on a science forum, so I'm turning to this one to get a definitive answer.

Any ideas?

Fazor from the other forum says hello, by the way.

If it's not a direct quote from Cervantes, a major theme of the book condensed to a few words. The fact is that Quixote is delusional, but he is a seeker of truth.

Yes, agreed. But if you google the expression, you will find everybody says this is a quotation from Don Quijote. Now it would be fair to assume that Cervantes is meant unless stated that it was somebody else's. So much for the internet.

The point is that it is to settle a dispute, because somebody claimed it was Cervantes. I've run a computer search on verdad, enemigo, hechos, in the Cervantes Don Quijote text, and find nothing which is the alleged quotation. :thinking:

The quote "Facts are the enemy of truth" is by Dale Wasserman, not by
Cervantes. The confusion comes from the fact that the quote is uttered by
the character Cervantes/Don Quijote in the play _Man of La Mancha_.
Specifically, it occurs in response to the assertion by Dr. Carrasco that
"These are *facts*", namely that "There are no giants. No kings under
enchantment. No chivalry. No knights. There have been no knights for three
hundred years."
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrow...ayP7Q&user=&pw=


http://www.h-net.org/~cervant/csa/artics99/wasserma.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/121842
http://www.lyricoperasandiego.org/resource_library/LaManchaSynopsis.htm
http://www.starbacks.ca/Broadway/Booth/3178/quotes.html

Many thanks, Rusty. I'll pass the info on, if I may.

You're welcome. You don't need my permission to repost elsewhere. ;)