quotations about truth
If truth is the lure, humans are fishes.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"If Truth Is the Lure, Humans Are Fishes"
You made up the truth and then buried the real thing under so much garbage that people grew weary of trying to dig through it and instead just accepted what you offered. It was the easy way out and humans were programmed to always go that way.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
A worship of truth can be idolatry if the truth is small enough.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
ANDRE GIDE
So Be It; or, The Chips Are Down
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts from his deepest convictions. Then, whatever the situation he may be in, he always knows what he must say and do. He may fall, but he cannot bring shame upon himself or his cause.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.
MAXIM GORKY
The Lower Depths
And the truth is cold, as a giant's knee
Will seem cold.
JOHN ASHBERY
"A Last World"
Truth as philosophy is a gas; as art, it is visible steam.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Where the interests of truth are at actual stake, we ought, perhaps, to sacrifice even that which is our own--if, at least, we are to lay any claim to a philosophic spirit.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Fall
I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to George E. Pickett, February 22, 1841
Truth never changes.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
PHILIP ROTH
The Human Stain
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
OSCAR WILDE
The Nightingale and the Rose
But that battered word, truth, having made its appearance here, confronts one immediately with a series of riddles and has, moreover, since so many gospels are preached, the unfortunate tendency to make one belligerent.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
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
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Above the Battle
There is no religion higher than the truth.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
Truth is a point of view about things.
MARCEL PROUST
attributed, Empire Star
Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts