Fact
A fact (derived from the Latin factum, see below) is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be proven to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable experiments.
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Famous quotes containing the word fact:
“The fact which the politician faces is merely that there is less honor among thieves than was supposed, and not the fact that they are thieves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A fact is a proposition of which the verification by an appeal to the primary sources of our knowledge or to experience is direct and simple. A theory, on the other hand, if true, has all the characteristics of a fact except that its verification is possible only by indirect, remote, and difficult means.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)
“Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)