TRUTH QUOTES XI

quotations about truth

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

JOHN LOCKE

letter to Anthony Collins, October 30, 1703


There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

ANAÏS NIN

diary, Fall 1943

Tags: Anaïs Nin


Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.

LAURELL K. HAMILTON

Guilty Pleasures


Human truth is always soiled with falsehood.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


Truth is truth, though from an enemy, and spoken in malice.

GEORGE LILLO

George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant


It is dangerous to follow truth too near, lest she should kick out our teeth.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Sir Walter Raleigh


Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.

ROBERT M. PIRSIG

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


Truth, though hewn like the mangled form of Osiris into a thousand pieces, and scattered to the four winds, shall be gathered limb to limb, and moulded with every joint and member into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Parerga and Paralipomena

Tags: Arthur Schopenhauer


Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.

WILL ROGERS

The Illiterate Digest

Tags: Will Rogers


Truth is the backbone of character. Nothing is beautiful or strong or permanent without truth. All qualifications that go to make up noble manhood count for naught where there is not a persistent adherence to truthfulness. As the mirror reflects objects as they are, without alteration, so truth presents everything as it is.

HENRY F. KLETZING

"Truth"


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"


Truth lies in a small compass, and if a well has been assigned her, for a habitation, it is as appropriate from its narrowness, as its depth.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon

Tags: Charles Caleb Colton


Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

MARK TWAIN

Following the Equator

Tags: Mark Twain


Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


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

Tags: Aeschylus


If we think we have found truth for ourselves, above all things, let us not impose it on one another. Let us lock upon it all the doors of consciousness. For however inspiring it may be to us, however ennobling, when once we try to impose it on another it becomes a poison.

JOHN DANIEL BARRY

"Truth", Intimations

Tags: John Daniel Barry


It is some disaster for any mind to hold any one thing for truth that is untrue, however insignificant it be, or however honestly it be held. It is a greater disaster when the false prejudice bars the way to some truth behind it, which, but for it, would find an entrance to the soul; and the greatness of the disaster will in this case be measured by the importance of the excluded truth.

HENRY PARRY LIDDON

Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford

Tags: Henry Parry Liddon


Truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an original affinity with freedom.

MICHEL FOUCAULT

History of Sexuality

Tags: Michel Foucault


The nearer we approach to the God of Truth, the farther we are from the danger of Error.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms