TRUTH QUOTES VIII

quotations about truth

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

LILLIAN HELLMAN

The Little Foxes

Tags: Lillian Hellman


And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express.

WILHELM REICH

Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939

Tags: Wilhelm Reich


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

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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

Tags: Sabine Baring-Gould


I would then like to know how it comes about that when each piece of a story is true, the whole story turns out to be false?

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858

Tags: Abraham Lincoln


He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place.

HORACE MANN

Thoughts


Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.

GRAHAM GREENE

Travels with My Aunt


There are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's, but behind all of them, there's only one truth and that is that there's no truth.

FLANNERY O'CONNOR

Wise Blood


If you seek truth, you will not seek by every means to gain a victory; and if you have found truth, you will have the gain of not being defeated.

EPICTETUS

Fragments


With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.

ARISTOTLE

Nicomachean Ethics


When social forces press for the rejection of age-old Truth, then those who reject it will seek meaning in their own truth. These truths will rarely be Truth at all; they will be only collections of personal preferences and prejudices.

DEAN KOONTZ

Forever Odd

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Truth is not what makes people feel good. Unfortunately, bad news can be true.

CHAMBERLAIN C. OGUNEDO

"And the truth shall set you free: What is truth?", The Guardian, November 27, 2016


The color of truth is grey.

ANDRE GIDE

Autumn Leaves

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Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth!

URSULA K. LE GUIN

introduction, The Left Hand of Darkness


Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either.

AESOP

Fables

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The true is Godlike: we do not see it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


But thou, my son, study to make prevail
One colour in thy life, the hue of truth.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

Merope

Tags: Matthew Arnold


Truth shines more brightly the more widely it is diffused.

JOHN WYCLIFFE

attributed, Day's Collacon


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

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Personally, I don't give a rap for documents; for the truth in my eyes is not in them but in the mind.

LUIGI PIRANDELLO

It Is So! (If You Think So)

Tags: Luigi Pirandello