TRUTH QUOTES X

quotations about truth

He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place.

HORACE MANN

Thoughts


One voice speaking truth is a greater force than fleets and armies.

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Left Hand of Darkness

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin


Truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an original affinity with freedom.

MICHEL FOUCAULT

History of Sexuality

Tags: Michel Foucault


Truth shines more brightly the more widely it is diffused.

JOHN WYCLIFFE

attributed, Day's Collacon


Truths kindle light for truths.

LUCRETIUS

De Rerum Natura

Tags: Lucretius


Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


Nature has completely hid truth in the bottom of a well.

DEMOCRITUS

attributed, Day's Collacon


Truth is beauty. That can be a hard thing to say, because some things are not so attractive on the surface. But by owning up to them, we change them--just by speaking them.

BONO

Oprah Magazine, April 2004

Tags: Bono


An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.

MAHATMA GANDHI

Young India 1924-1926


Human truth is always soiled with falsehood.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Parerga and Paralipomena

Tags: Arthur Schopenhauer


Truth smells like Chinese food and sweat.

NICHOLSON BAKER

The Anthologist

Tags: Nicholson Baker


Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

L'Envoi

Tags: James Russell Lowell


Any given man sees only a tiny portion of the total truth, and very often, in fact almost ... perpetually, he deliberately deceives himself about that little precious fragment as well.

PHILIP K. DICK

A Scanner Darkly

Tags: Philip K. Dick


Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.

ROBERT M. PIRSIG

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.

LAURELL K. HAMILTON

Guilty Pleasures


To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

JOHN LOCKE

letter to Anthony Collins, October 30, 1703


Truth is truth, though from an enemy, and spoken in malice.

GEORGE LILLO

George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant


Will you tell me how a man's to live, and face his life, if he can't believe that truth's like a fire, and will burn through and be seen though it takes all the years there are? While I stand up and have breath in my lungs I shall be one flame of that fire; it's all the life I have.

MAXWELL ANDERSON

Winterset

Tags: Maxwell Anderson


If we think we have found truth for ourselves, above all things, let us not impose it on one another. Let us lock upon it all the doors of consciousness. For however inspiring it may be to us, however ennobling, when once we try to impose it on another it becomes a poison.

JOHN DANIEL BARRY

"Truth", Intimations

Tags: John Daniel Barry