quotations about truth
We cannot make things true by any amount of effort; we can merely discover what God has made true from all eternity.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
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
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
Some that will hold a creed unto martyrdom will not hold the truth against a sneering laugh.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Ideas and Opinions: Based on Mein Weltbild
Truth -- there's no such thing.
TANKRED DORST
Freedom for Clemens
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
The semblance of absolute truth is nothing but absolute conformism.
PAUL FEYERABEND
Against Method
Fairer than all fancies is the truth.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"A Vigil"
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
Platitudes are safe, because they're easy to wink at, but truth is something else again.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
The Proud Highway
The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.
REBECCA WEST
The Meaning of Treason
If the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
Arguably, this strategy is not viable beyond laboratory settings, because the truth is always unknown on the streets.
ANNA K. BOBAK
"Can We Improve National Security Using What We Know about Face Recognition?", Scientific American, April 18, 2017
Truth is within ourselves.
ROBERT BROWNING
Paracelsus
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Notes on Virginia
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
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
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.
JOHN MILTON
Areopagitica