quotations about truth
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
OSCAR WILDE
The Critic as Artist
It's heartwarming that The New York Times and The Washington Post are troubled that President Trump is loosely throwing around accusations of "fake news." It's nice that they now realize that truth does not reliably come from the mouth of every senior government official or from every official report.
ROBERT PARRY
"Mainstream Media's 'Victimhood'", Consortium News, February 28, 2017
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
For simple are the words of truth.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Hoplon Krisis
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook C", Aphorisms
Truth is too precious a commodity to be wasted upon mere idolators.
HERNANDEZ CORTEZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
Truth is literally that which is without secrecy, what discloses itself without a veil.
R. D. LAING
attributed, R. D. Laing: The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy
I didn't care about truth; I cared about beauty. It took me many years--it took the experience of lived time--to realize that they really are the same thing.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Possessed
How sweet is truth to the understanding! And, when spoken in a language every word of which is familiar, how harmonious it sounds to the ear by which the sentiments find their way to the heart!
HOSEA BALLOU
A Series of Letters in Defense of Divine Revelation
A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth." But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.
SAUL BELLOW
Herzog
Truth is what every man sees lurking at the bottom of his own soul, like the oyster shell housewives put in the kitchen kettle to collect the lime from the water. By and by each man's iridescent oyster shell of Truth becomes coated with the lime of prejudice and hearsay.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
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 a pillar erected by God, and upholdeth the universe.
JAMES LINEN
"Desultorious Chronicles", The Poetical and Prose Writings of James Linen
Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
"Stammbuch"
No combatants are so unequally matched as when one is shackled with error, while the other rejoices in the self-demonstrability of truth.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
I tried to put a bird in a cage.
O fool that I am!
For the bird was Truth.
Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put
Truth in a cage!
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
The Fool's Song
Although the truth is not always pleasant, the truth is always a gift because it offers the recipient of that information the chance to change the outcome.
DENISE RESTAURI
"Four Words That Give This CEO The Courage To Take On The Beauty Industry", Forbes, December 8, 2016
Were truth our uttered language, Angels might talk with men.
GERALD MASSEY
"The World is Full of Beauty"
Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured, but, like the sun, only for a time.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
There is truth and falsehood in a comma.
TOM STOPPARD
The Invention of Love