quotations about truth
I am quite prepared to admit that being habitual liars and self-deluders, we have good cause to fear the truth, but I'm not at all ready to stop hoping. There may be some truths that are, after all, our friends in the universe.
SAUL BELLOW
The Paris Review, winter 1966
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
If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment.
FRANCES WRIGHT
Course of Popular Lectures
For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies and cultures change. For the scientist, the goal of a theory is to convey "truth for now"--to replace an old truth, while accepting that someday this theory, too, will be replaced by a new "truth," because that is the way science advances.
DANIEL J. LEVITIN
This Is Your Brain on Music
The Truth, with a capital T, is what ought to be. Not simply what was, or what is.
JENNIFER LEE CARRELL
Interred With Their Bones
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"
For behold, Thou lovest the truth, and he that doth it, cometh to the light.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
There are some things that can't be the truth even if they did happen.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
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
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
Since the world drifts into delirium, we must adopt a delirious point of view. We must no longer assume any principle of truth, of causality, or any discursive norm. Instead, we must grant both the poetic singularity of events and the radical uncertainty of events.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
The Vital Illusion
No great truth bursts upon man without having its hemisphere of darkness and sorrow.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
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
The only way to the truth is through blasphemy.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
Wise Blood
You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it all. But let all you tell be truth.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
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
There is often more truth in the censure of enemies than in the flattery of friends.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Those only who can bear the truth will hear it.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
We must not put Truth into the place of a means, but into the place of an end.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
The greatest truths are the simplest.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust