quotations about truth
Truth never was indebted to a lie.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
I see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Selected Writings
It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.
JANE AUSTEN
Emma
So multifarious are the different classes of truths, and so multitudinous the truths in each class, that it may be undoubtingly affirmed that no man has yet lived who could so much as name all the different classes and subdivisions of truths, and far less anyone who was acquainted with all the truths belonging to any one class. What wonderful extent, what amazing variety, what collective magnificence! And if such be the number of truths pertaining to this tiny ball of earth, how must it be in the incomprehensible immensity!
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Stronger than steel is the sword of the Spirit;
Swifter than arrows, the light of the truth.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Nun of Nidaros", Tales of a Wayside Inn
The cold passion for truth hunts in no pack.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"Be Angry at the Sun"
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
letter, September 6, 1955
Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth", Essays
Truth is only a question of point of view.
KARL LAGERFELD
Vice Magazine, February 28, 2010
Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction ... for fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Club of Queer Trades
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
Education and time may improve and augment the uses of truth, but cannot alter the structure, which is ever the same--as proceeding from the Eternal.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Every man can have his own peculiar truth; and yet it is always the same.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Fairer than all fancies is the truth.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"A Vigil"
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.
KINGSLEY AMIS
Lucky Jim
I do not think that so much harm is done by giving error to a child, as by giving truth in a lifeless form.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
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
Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people -- as may be noticed of most young children -- does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years.
DINAH CRAIK
A Woman's Thoughts About Women