quotations about truth
Personally, I don't give a rap for documents; for the truth in my eyes is not in them but in the mind.
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
It Is So! (If You Think So)
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
GRAHAM GREENE
Travels with My Aunt
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
My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth.
MAHATMA GANDHI
An Autobiography
There is no doubt that truth is to falsehood as light is to darkness; and so excellent a thing is truth that even when it touches humble and lowly matters, it still incomparably exceeds the uncertainty and falsehood in which great and elevated discourses are clothed; because even if falsehood be the fifth element of our minds, notwithstanding this, truth is the supreme nourishment of the higher intellects.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express.
WILHELM REICH
Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939
Truth is a moral requirement for society, and offenses against honesty, by word or action, are violations against character, ethics, and moral decency.
VINCENT J. BOVE
"Trojan Horse in the Heart of America", The Epoch Times, May 10, 2017
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Brothers Karamazov
If you can't tell the truth to the people you care about the most, eventually you stop being able to tell the truth to yourself.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Ashes
For any truth, if overdone ... if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its applicability, can be reduced to absurdity.
VLADIMIR LENIN
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder
There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ
La monadologie
The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms
Sometimes ... the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN
The Dark Knight
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Little Foxes
Truth ... is the sovereign good of human nature.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
An honest man speaks truth, though it may give offense; a vain man, in order that it may.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.
STEPHEN COLBERT
interview, AV Club, January 25, 2006
All things to all men only fools will tell,
Truth profits none but those that use it well.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
The Wise Men of Greece: In a Series of Dramatic Dialogues
The truth ... is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution.
J. K. ROWLING
The Sorcerer's Stone