quotations about truth
Truth is the bread of a noble manhood.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Truth hurts. Maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with a seat missing, but it hurts.
LT. FRANK DREBIN (LESLIE NIELSEN)
Naked Gun 2 1/2
Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either.
AESOP
Fables
Hide what you have to hide
And tell what you have to tell
You'll see your problems multiplied
If you continually decide
To faithfully pursue
The policy of truth
DEPECHE MODE
"Policy of Truth"
The greatest truths are the simplest.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Who dares to say that he alone has found the truth?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The New England Tragedies
The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already been recognized by others.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
If man refused to believe those truths which were not made evident to his reason, he could not live among his fellows, nor could he make the slightest progress in civilization.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
We're not given the chance to choose absolute truth. Truth's always two-faced. The only thing we have is the right to reject the lie we find most repugnant.
SERGEI LUKYANENKO
Night Watch
We must not put Truth into the place of a means, but into the place of an end.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation, because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth, than to refine themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
No great truth bursts upon man without having its hemisphere of darkness and sorrow.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you are the Truth. If you look for it elsewhere, you will be deceived every time.
ECKHART TOLLE
A New Earth
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Annajanska
There are some things that can't be the truth even if they did happen.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Occasions
The force of truth that a statement imparts, then, its prominence among the hordes of recorded observations that I may optionally apply to my own life, depends, in addition to the sense that it is argumentatively defensible, on the sense that someone like me, and someone I like, whose voice is audible and who is at least notionally in the same room with me, does or can possibly hold it to be compellingly true.
NICHOLSON BAKER
U and I
Truth cannot contradict truth.
POPE LEO X
Papal bull condemning every proposition contrary to the truth of the enlightened Christian faith, Apostolici Regiminis, December 19, 1513
All truths are erroneous. This is the very essence of the dialectical process: today's truths become errors tomorrow; there is no final number.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters