quotations about truth
All men need truth as they need water; if wise men are as high grounds where the springs rise, ordinary men are the lower grounds which their waters nourish.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
There are always men who are ready to ask, with an idle curiosity, with an interest too superficial to wait for an answer, this question, "What is truth?" There are always those who are ready to ask it, with a saddened or scornful skepticism, as quite sure there is no answer to be given; no truth; nothing but fancies, speculations, notions, opinions, fleeting, contradictory, and futile. And, thank God, there have always been men, like Jesus, who have seen the truth to be such an transcendent, vital, divine reality that they knew it to be a thing worth living, worth dying for. So Jesus could declare the truth to be, no fancy, no delusion, no mere opinion or speculation, but that thing to bear witness to which was the one purpose of his existence, the thing for which he was born.
SAMUEL LONGFELLOW
"Truth"
The most familiar precepts are not always the truest.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
attributed, Physics, God, and the End of the World
As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Vicar of Wakefield
Man is here to search for truth, and to search until he finds it. And he will enjoy it all the more that he has had to search for it.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to everyone.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Our feelings often color the truth.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The truth is dark under your eyelids.
CHARLES SIMIC
"Against Winter", Walking the Black Cat
Truth is always opposed to the destructiveness of deception, duplicity, and hypocrisy. Although deviances may have their moment, truth must be forever upheld, for in due time, it will have its victory.
VINCENT J. BOVE
"Trojan Horse in the Heart of America", The Epoch Times, May 10, 2017
There is no higher religion than the truth.
HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
The Essential Works of Helena Blavatsky
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.
ROBERT FROST
"The Black Cottage"
Truth is new, as well as old. It has new forms; and where you may find a new statement, an earnest statement, you may conclude that by the law of progress it is more likely to be a correct statement than that which has been repeated for ages by the lips of tradition.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Truth often spoils the dinner.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The unclouded eye was better, no matter what it saw.
FRANK HERBERT
Chapterhouse: Dune
But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes
That look on it! the diverse things they see!
GEORGE MEREDITH
"A Ballad of Fair Ladies in Revolt"
The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"A Liberal Decalogue", New York Times Magazine, December 16, 1951