quotations about truth
When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
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
Truth is not simply what is believed. A lie believed is still a lie.
CHAMBERLAIN C. OGUNEDO
"And the truth shall set you free: What is truth?", The Guardian, November 27, 2016
Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying is thither in a straight line.
JOHN TILLOTSON
The Works of the Most Reverend John Tillotson, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury
If any man dared to translate all that is in his heart, to put down what is really his experience, what is truly his truth, I think then the world would go to smash, that it would be blown to smithereens and no god, no accident, no will could ever again assemble the pieces, the atoms, the indestructible elements that have gone to make up the world.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
There's many a true word spoken in jest.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
letter, September 6, 1955
Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
lecture at Workers' Educational Association, May 1940
The demands of Truth are severe; she has no sympathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood, which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive the radical and chasmal differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"The Poetic Principle"
Who make up the really great men of any age? It is those who have truth woven into every fiber of their being.
HENRY F. KLETZING
"Truth"
Old Time was young, men's hearts were all untried
By Grief and Sin, when round this whirling ball
Pure Truth and Falsehood journeyed side by side
In free companionship. At evenfall
Of that long day which closed the Age of Gold
They came to Pleasure's lake, and both were glad
To cast their robes and seek those waters cold.
But Falsehood, first emerging, lightly clad
Her limbs in Truth's white garments, fresh and fair,
And swiftly fled away with mocking mirth;
While Truth, disdaining Falsehood's tattered wear,
Pursued. So still around the dizzy earth
Flies Falsehood, well-disguised in Truth's array,
While Truth runs after, naked to the day.
ARTHUR GUITERMAN
"Truth and Falsehood"
The semblance of absolute truth is nothing but absolute conformism.
PAUL FEYERABEND
Against Method
We're told that we're living in a post-truth (or post-factual) era, a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, a culture that eschews a foundation of solid facts. Indeed, it is said that in this post-truth time, facts have become "secondary" if not entirely irrelevant. But who gets stuck with this "post-truth" label -- and it is typically used as an insult -- is not so simple.
GILBERT DOCTOROW
"Complexities of a 'Post-Truth' Era", Consortium News, May 11, 2017
Truth is the edict of God.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth", Essays
Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"University Education", Fact and Fiction
The truth can both lift up and knock down.
KIRBY LARSON
Hattie Ever After
Let us continue to improve until we are filled with the knowledge of the truth. We have yet much to learn.
BRIGHAM YOUNG
Journal of Discourses
Thorough truthfulness--truthfulness to others and to ourselves--is a rare virtue; and he who indeed acts upon it is the noblest of all heroes.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words