quotations about truth
Human truth is always soiled with falsehood.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Truths, no matter how momentous or enduring, are nothing to the individual until he appreciates them, and feels their force, and acknowledges their sovereignty. He cannot bow to their majesty until he sees their power. All the blind then, and all the ignorant--that is, all the children--must be educated up to the point of perceiving and admitting the truth, and acting according to its mandates.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
It is far more difficult, I assure you, to live for the truth than to die for it.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Any given man sees only a tiny portion of the total truth, and very often, in fact almost ... perpetually, he deliberately deceives himself about that little precious fragment as well.
PHILIP K. DICK
A Scanner Darkly
If we think we have found truth for ourselves, above all things, let us not impose it on one another. Let us lock upon it all the doors of consciousness. For however inspiring it may be to us, however ennobling, when once we try to impose it on another it becomes a poison.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Truth", Intimations
Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
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
The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Parerga and Paralipomena
Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Truth can only be attained by those whose systems are untainted by secret influences, such as love, envy, ambition, food, college education and moonlight in spring.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion.
GIANNINA BRASCHI
Empire of Dreams
Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.
WILL ROGERS
The Illiterate Digest
You made up the truth and then buried the real thing under so much garbage that people grew weary of trying to dig through it and instead just accepted what you offered. It was the easy way out and humans were programmed to always go that way.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
If I hear the way of truth in the morning, I am content even to die in the evening.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects
He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Above the Battle
Things we wish to be true are apt to gain too ready credit with us.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Pamela
The truth of the scholar, alone in his study, does not always accord with what the world at large considers to be true.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
Truth is truth, though from an enemy, and spoken in malice.
GEORGE LILLO
George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant
Truth is the backbone of character. Nothing is beautiful or strong or permanent without truth. All qualifications that go to make up noble manhood count for naught where there is not a persistent adherence to truthfulness. As the mirror reflects objects as they are, without alteration, so truth presents everything as it is.
HENRY F. KLETZING
"Truth"