quotations about truth
Truth is the right hand of God.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
A Game of Thrones
It might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of spirit should be measured according to how much of the "truth" one could still barely endure--or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
I see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Selected Writings
Half truths were a wonderful way to inspire credibility.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Winner
Each man has in him the potential to realize the truth through his own will and endeavour and to help others to realize it.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
In Quest of Democracy
An adherence to truth, open and without reservation, has, from the age of chivalry downwards, been considered as one of the loftiest attributes of a "gentleman"; so much so, that, to brand as "a liar" the pretender to such a title, is one of the most deadly insults that you can offer him.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth." But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.
SAUL BELLOW
Herzog
When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Truth was the only daughter of Time.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
There's many a true word spoken in jest.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
WILLIAM JAMES
Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness", The Varieties of Religious Experience
The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.
ADRIENNE RICH
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence
The strict conservative says that truth is in danger. It is the idlest fear in the world. It plainly indicates no intimacy with the truth. He who has communed with great principles knows that they are everlasting, and that nothing can shake them from their orbits. He is willing to trust truth in every encounter, knowing it to be eternal and omnipotent.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
"Stammbuch"
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth", Essays
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
OSCAR WILDE
The Critic as Artist