quotations about truth
A worship of truth can be idolatry if the truth is small enough.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
ANDRE GIDE
So Be It; or, The Chips Are Down
You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right -- at least if you have any experience -- because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in.
RICHARD FEYNMAN
attributed, Sympathetic Vibrations
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
Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.
MAXIM GORKY
The Lower Depths
In the end, the truth finds a way to surface even if you don't want it to.
JENNIFER LOPEZ
True Love
I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defence of it.
JOHN LOCKE
The Reasonableness of Christianity
In your admiration for truth do not forget that truth can sometimes be as foul as a lie.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Truth, like good medicine, is oftentimes repugnant to our present feelings, but gives vigour afterwards.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
There is no religion higher than the truth.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
Whatever truth you contribute to the world will be one lucky shot in a thousand misses. You cannot be right by holding your breath and taking precautions.
WALTER LIPPMANN
"Taking a Chance", Force and Ideas: The Early Writings
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
There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those "truths" we once believed.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
"Truth Will Have No Other Gods Alongside It"
An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
There are tides of justice surging to the unknown shores of right;
Stars of truth that seek a setting in the dark, untutored night.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Caelestis"
Truth upholds the earth; by truth the Sun shines; the winds blow by truth; and everything else subsists by truth.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
Truth is death to the portrait painter.
FRANCIS A. DURIVAGE
"The Career of an Artist"
The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Infinite Jest