quotations about truth
We shall find some things that are true, and some that are new, but very few things that are both true and new.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
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"
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook C", Aphorisms
Were truth our uttered language, Angels might talk with men.
GERALD MASSEY
"The World is Full of Beauty"
The best way to deceive a knave is to tell him the truth.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
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
I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try to call on it, just like a lightbulb cracking off when you throw the switch.
ANN PATCHETT
Truth and Beauty
Each man has in him the potential to realize the truth through his own will and endeavour and to help others to realize it.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
In Quest of Democracy
There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The temple of truth is built indeed of stones of crystal, but, inasmuch as men have been concerned in rearing it, it has been consolidated by a cement composed of baser materials.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
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 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
For truth has such a face and such a mien
As to be loved needs only to be seen.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Hind and the Panther
It might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of spirit should be measured according to how much of the "truth" one could still barely endure--or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
The sublime delight of truthful speech to one who has the great gift of uttering it, will make itself felt even through the pangs of sorrow.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
An adherence to truth, open and without reservation, has, from the age of chivalry downwards, been considered as one of the loftiest attributes of a "gentleman"; so much so, that, to brand as "a liar" the pretender to such a title, is one of the most deadly insults that you can offer him.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
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 see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Selected Writings
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