quotations about truth
For simple are the words of truth.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Hoplon Krisis
Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
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
Condemn not truth for error's deeds.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"Flowers and Weeds"
I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary."
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
Some sorts of truth are truer than others.
JACK LONDON
John Barleycorn
Platitudes are safe, because they're easy to wink at, but truth is something else again.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
The Proud Highway
When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects
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
Some that will hold a creed unto martyrdom will not hold the truth against a sneering laugh.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.
ADRIENNE RICH
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence
I do not think that so much harm is done by giving error to a child, as by giving truth in a lifeless form.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
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
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Notes on Virginia
There must be repressed truth even in lies.
STANISLAW IGNACY WITKIEWICZ
The Madman and the Nun
O Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they often and diversely, and in many and huge books, echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And these were the dishes wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they, instead of Thee, served up the Sun and Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but yet Thy works, not Thyself, no nor Thy first works. For Thy spiritual works are before these corporeal works, celestial though they be, and shining. But I hungered and thirsted not even after those first works of Thine, but after Thee Thyself, the Truth, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: yet they still set before me in those dishes, glittering fantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun (which is real to our sight at least), than those fantasies which by our eyes deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed thereon; not eagerly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou art; for Thou wast not these emptinesses, nor was I nourished by them, but exhausted rather.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.
REBECCA WEST
The Meaning of Treason
Truth is, whatever may be said to the contrary, superior to all fictions. One ought never to regret seeing clearer into the depths.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
The best way to deceive a knave is to tell him the truth.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts