TRUTH QUOTES XVIII

quotations about truth

Truth -- there's no such thing.

TANKRED DORST

Freedom for Clemens

Tags: Tankred Dorst


O Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they often and diversely, and in many and huge books, echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And these were the dishes wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they, instead of Thee, served up the Sun and Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but yet Thy works, not Thyself, no nor Thy first works. For Thy spiritual works are before these corporeal works, celestial though they be, and shining. But I hungered and thirsted not even after those first works of Thine, but after Thee Thyself, the Truth, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: yet they still set before me in those dishes, glittering fantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun (which is real to our sight at least), than those fantasies which by our eyes deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed thereon; not eagerly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou art; for Thou wast not these emptinesses, nor was I nourished by them, but exhausted rather.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Confessions

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Truth is within ourselves.

ROBERT BROWNING

Paracelsus


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

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Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes--never!

MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

The Master and Margarita

Tags: Mikhail Bulgakov


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

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Spurn not at seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth;
And beware of seeming truths that grow on the roots of error.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy

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The truth can both lift up and knock down.

KIRBY LARSON

Hattie Ever After

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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

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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

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The best way to deceive a knave is to tell him the truth.

IVAN PANIN

Thoughts

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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


Thorough truthfulness--truthfulness to others and to ourselves--is a rare virtue; and he who indeed acts upon it is the noblest of all heroes.

E. H. CHAPIN

Living Words


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


Trump's relationship to the truth seems novel, if only because he doesn't try to hide his relativism. For Trump, truth is always more about how people feel than what may be empirically verifiable. Trump admits as much in The Art of the Deal, where he describes his sales strategy as "truthful hyperbole." For Trump, facts are fragile, and truth is flexible. Trump probably doesn't spend evenings poring over Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge -- but the parallels between Trump's attacks on accepted knowledge and critical philosophy's insistence that we interrogate truth claims suggest that not all assaults on the authority of facts are revolutionary.

CASEY WILLIAMS

"Creating Truth is Assertion of Power", Asharq Al-Awsat, April 19, 2017


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

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Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.

AMBROSE BIERCE

"Epigrams of a Cynic"


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

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The semblance of absolute truth is nothing but absolute conformism.

PAUL FEYERABEND

Against Method


Truth is artless and innocent--like the eloquence of nature, it is clothed with simplicity and easy persuasion; always open to investigation and analysis, it seeks exposure, because it fears not detection.

NORMAN MACDONALD

Maxims and Moral Reflections

Tags: Norman MacDonald