quotations about truth
Truth irritates those only whom it enlightens, but does not convert.
PASQUIER QUESNEL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Truth makes on the surface of nature no one track of light -- every eye looking on finds its own.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Caxtoniana
Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion.
GIANNINA BRASCHI
Empire of Dreams
It is some disaster for any mind to hold any one thing for truth that is untrue, however insignificant it be, or however honestly it be held. It is a greater disaster when the false prejudice bars the way to some truth behind it, which, but for it, would find an entrance to the soul; and the greatness of the disaster will in this case be measured by the importance of the excluded truth.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Only the dead know the truth.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
The usefulest truths are the plainest.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Truth is a chameleon.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Atreides
If I hear the way of truth in the morning, I am content even to die in the evening.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects
Generally speaking, "truth" is a statement about what is perceived as real. And the truth is that truth is always contested. Facts can always be challenged and interpreted differently. If shared by many in a society, truths turn into societal beliefs.
CORA PFAFFEROTT
"Is 'post-truth' just a convenient lie?", Chron, January 23, 2017
New constellations of truth are daily discovered in the firmament of knowledge, and new stars are daily shining forth in each constellation.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
The truth
Has to be melted out of our stubborn lives
By suffering.
Nothing speaks the truth,
Nothing tells us how things really are,
Nothing forces us to know
What we do not want to know
Except pain.
And this is how the gods declare their love.
AESCHYLUS
The Oresteia
Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Fall
Truth can only be attained by those whose systems are untainted by secret influences, such as love, envy, ambition, food, college education and moonlight in spring.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
The truth may often be carried about by those who themselves remain all unaware of it. They bear that which has weight and substance and yet for them has no name whereby it may be evoked or called forth. They go about ignorant of the true nature of their condition, such are the wiles of truth and such its stratagems.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
It is far more difficult, I assure you, to live for the truth than to die for it.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
There is no religion higher than the truth.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Above the Battle