quotations about truth
Only the dead know the truth.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
Some truths may be proclaimed upon the housetop; others may be spoken by the fireside; still others must be whispered in the ear of a friend.
ROSSITER JOHNSON
"The Whispering Gallery"
The usefulest truths are the plainest.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Truth irritates those only whom it enlightens, but does not convert.
PASQUIER QUESNEL
attributed, Day's Collacon
A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Generally speaking, "truth" is a statement about what is perceived as real. And the truth is that truth is always contested. Facts can always be challenged and interpreted differently. If shared by many in a society, truths turn into societal beliefs.
CORA PFAFFEROTT
"Is 'post-truth' just a convenient lie?", Chron, January 23, 2017
If I hear the way of truth in the morning, I am content even to die in the evening.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects
Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion.
GIANNINA BRASCHI
Empire of Dreams
With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Entrust Truth, whatsoever thou hast from the Truth, and thou shalt lose nothing; and thy decay shall bloom again, and all thy diseases be healed, and thy mortal parts be reformed and renewed, and bound around thee.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
The most effectual method of expelling error, is, not to meet it sword in hand, but gradually to instill great truths, with which it cannot easily coexist.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
The truth may often be carried about by those who themselves remain all unaware of it. They bear that which has weight and substance and yet for them has no name whereby it may be evoked or called forth. They go about ignorant of the true nature of their condition, such are the wiles of truth and such its stratagems.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
The truth
Has to be melted out of our stubborn lives
By suffering.
Nothing speaks the truth,
Nothing tells us how things really are,
Nothing forces us to know
What we do not want to know
Except pain.
And this is how the gods declare their love.
AESCHYLUS
The Oresteia
Truth ...
Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment.
STEPHEN CRANE
The Black Riders and Other Lines
Truth is a chameleon.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Atreides
Truth makes on the surface of nature no one track of light -- every eye looking on finds its own.
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Caxtoniana
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Above the Battle
It is far more difficult, I assure you, to live for the truth than to die for it.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
New constellations of truth are daily discovered in the firmament of knowledge, and new stars are daily shining forth in each constellation.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts