quotations about truth
We grease the truth with rhyme.
NIK HOUSER
"A Beginner's Guide to Sandcastle Alchemy", Weird Tales, Summer 2011
We have great power to see the truth when the truth is all we wish to see; but what is easier than to credit what we desire? and can a man deceive anyone so easily as himself?
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
And how is one to know what is Truth? He thinks one thing before lunch; after a stirring bout with corned beef and onions the shining vision is strangely altered. Which is Truth?
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
No one wants it to be true. But the truth doesn't care what anyone wants.
GLEN DUNCAN
By Blood We Live
Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in its excess.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
God sends ten thousand truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing a while upon the roof and then fly away.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
That which is not formed of truth is of bad texture.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The sad truth is the truth is sad.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, The Hostile Hospital
Nothing feels sexier than wearing the beautiful truth.
COURTNEY STODDEN
Twitter post, October 6, 2011
I always tell the truth when I'm drunk. In vino vomitas.
GUY BELLAMY
The Man Who Won
We are too small, all but a few of us, to hold more than a little of the truth.
JOHN C. BAILEY
The Claims of French Poetry
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
The practice of utter sincerity towards other men would avail to no good end, if they were incapable of practising it towards their own minds. In fact, truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Essay on Christianity"
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise.
EMILY DICKINSON
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
Truth and Good are one; and Beauty dwells in them, and they in her.
MARK AKENSIDE
The Pleasures of Imagination
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Present Crisis
We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Nootbook
The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
If power does not listen to truth, power will reap its own destruction.
PAUL TYSON
"Adults in the Room, by Yanis Varoufakis", Open Democracy, May 11, 2017