quotations about truth
Truth and eggs are useful only while they are fresh.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The truth has no need to be uttered to be made apparent, and ... one may perhaps gather it with more certainty, without waiting for words and without even taking any account of them, from countless outward signs, even from certain invisible phenomena, analogous in the sphere of human character to what atmospheric changes are in the physical world.
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
The semblance of absolute truth is nothing but absolute conformism.
PAUL FEYERABEND
Against Method
The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom.--Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
Just think, reader, what will happen to you if the truth of a mad beast overpowers the sane truth of man?
MAXIM GORKY
Untimely Thoughts
It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
It is the way with half the truth amidst which we live, that it only haunts us and makes dull pulsations that are never born into sound.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
Half truths were a wonderful way to inspire credibility.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Winner
Every dogma embodies some shade of truth to give it seeming currency.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Truth is what every man sees lurking at the bottom of his own soul, like the oyster shell housewives put in the kitchen kettle to collect the lime from the water. By and by each man's iridescent oyster shell of Truth becomes coated with the lime of prejudice and hearsay.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
There must be repressed truth even in lies.
STANISLAW IGNACY WITKIEWICZ
The Madman and the Nun
The sublime delight of truthful speech to one who has the great gift of uttering it, will make itself felt even through the pangs of sorrow.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
The heart is an artist that paints over what profoundly disturbs us, leaving on the canvas a less dark, less sharp version of the truth.
DEAN KOONTZ
Forever Odd
The demands of Truth are severe; she has no sympathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood, which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive the radical and chasmal differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"The Poetic Principle"
Like the gush of the morning light, truth must go forward.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
lecture at Workers' Educational Association, May 1940
When all is said and done, how do we know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Celtic Twilight
We're told that we're living in a post-truth (or post-factual) era, a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, a culture that eschews a foundation of solid facts. Indeed, it is said that in this post-truth time, facts have become "secondary" if not entirely irrelevant. But who gets stuck with this "post-truth" label -- and it is typically used as an insult -- is not so simple.
GILBERT DOCTOROW
"Complexities of a 'Post-Truth' Era", Consortium News, May 11, 2017
We can, in general, be much less sure of the truth of a thing, than of the falsehood; because though every part we have seen may agree, yet we cannot tell how many may be behind, and one failure of connection will be sufficient to falsify the whole.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
Truth shall fear no open shame.
ANNE BOLEYN
attributed, Day's Collacon