quotations about truth
You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right -- at least if you have any experience -- because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in.
RICHARD FEYNMAN
attributed, Sympathetic Vibrations
Truth never changes.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defence of it.
JOHN LOCKE
The Reasonableness of Christianity
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
But that battered word, truth, having made its appearance here, confronts one immediately with a series of riddles and has, moreover, since so many gospels are preached, the unfortunate tendency to make one belligerent.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Truth as philosophy is a gas; as art, it is visible steam.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Where the interests of truth are at actual stake, we ought, perhaps, to sacrifice even that which is our own--if, at least, we are to lay any claim to a philosophic spirit.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
ANDRE GIDE
So Be It; or, The Chips Are Down
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
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Above the Battle
There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
PHILIP ROTH
The Human Stain
Truths that startled the generation in which they were first announced become in the next age the commonplaces of conversation; as the famous airs of operas which thrilled the first audiences come to be played on hand-organs in the streets.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
There are tides of justice surging to the unknown shores of right;
Stars of truth that seek a setting in the dark, untutored night.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Caelestis"
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
In your admiration for truth do not forget that truth can sometimes be as foul as a lie.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Whatever truth you contribute to the world will be one lucky shot in a thousand misses. You cannot be right by holding your breath and taking precautions.
WALTER LIPPMANN
"Taking a Chance", Force and Ideas: The Early Writings
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
OSCAR WILDE
The Nightingale and the Rose
Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.
MAXIM GORKY
The Lower Depths