TRUTH QUOTES XI

quotations about truth

Truths, no matter how momentous or enduring, are nothing to the individual until he appreciates them, and feels their force, and acknowledges their sovereignty. He cannot bow to their majesty until he sees their power. All the blind then, and all the ignorant--that is, all the children--must be educated up to the point of perceiving and admitting the truth, and acting according to its mandates.

HORACE MANN

Thoughts


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


There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

ANAÏS NIN

diary, Fall 1943

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It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.

EPICTETUS

Fragments

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

GEORGE LILLO

George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant


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

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Truth doesn't run on time like a commuter train.

KEN KESEY

Sometimes a Great Notion

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Truth is the backbone of character. Nothing is beautiful or strong or permanent without truth. All qualifications that go to make up noble manhood count for naught where there is not a persistent adherence to truthfulness. As the mirror reflects objects as they are, without alteration, so truth presents everything as it is.

HENRY F. KLETZING

"Truth"


It is dangerous to follow truth too near, lest she should kick out our teeth.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

attributed, Day's Collacon

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Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

MARK TWAIN

Following the Equator

Tags: Mark Twain


Truth, though hewn like the mangled form of Osiris into a thousand pieces, and scattered to the four winds, shall be gathered limb to limb, and moulded with every joint and member into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


You know the truth, the brick-hard, irregular, slithery surface of truth.

PHILIP K. DICK

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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

MICHEL FOUCAULT

History of Sexuality

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Truth lies in a small compass, and if a well has been assigned her, for a habitation, it is as appropriate from its narrowness, as its depth.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon

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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


Some truths may be proclaimed upon the housetop; others may be spoken by the fireside; still others must be whispered in the ear of a friend.

ROSSITER JOHNSON

"The Whispering Gallery"


The usefulest truths are the plainest.

WILLIAM PENN

Some Fruits of Solitude

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He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

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Generally speaking, "truth" is a statement about what is perceived as real. And the truth is that truth is always contested. Facts can always be challenged and interpreted differently. If shared by many in a society, truths turn into societal beliefs.

CORA PFAFFEROTT

"Is 'post-truth' just a convenient lie?", Chron, January 23, 2017


Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion.

GIANNINA BRASCHI

Empire of Dreams