quotations about truth
Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Where the interests of truth are at actual stake, we ought, perhaps, to sacrifice even that which is our own--if, at least, we are to lay any claim to a philosophic spirit.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
You made up the truth and then buried the real thing under so much garbage that people grew weary of trying to dig through it and instead just accepted what you offered. It was the easy way out and humans were programmed to always go that way.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
And the truth is cold, as a giant's knee
Will seem cold.
JOHN ASHBERY
"A Last World"
But that battered word, truth, having made its appearance here, confronts one immediately with a series of riddles and has, moreover, since so many gospels are preached, the unfortunate tendency to make one belligerent.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defence of it.
JOHN LOCKE
The Reasonableness of Christianity
I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to George E. Pickett, February 22, 1841
If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook E", Aphorisms
There are tides of justice surging to the unknown shores of right;
Stars of truth that seek a setting in the dark, untutored night.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Caelestis"
There is no religion higher than the truth.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
Truth comes to us from the past, as gold is washed down from the mountains of Sierra Nevada, in minute but precious particles, and intermixed with infinite alloy, the debris of the centuries.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
In your admiration for truth do not forget that truth can sometimes be as foul as a lie.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Truth upholds the earth; by truth the Sun shines; the winds blow by truth; and everything else subsists by truth.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
Truth, like good medicine, is oftentimes repugnant to our present feelings, but gives vigour afterwards.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those "truths" we once believed.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
"Truth Will Have No Other Gods Alongside It"
Whatever truth you contribute to the world will be one lucky shot in a thousand misses. You cannot be right by holding your breath and taking precautions.
WALTER LIPPMANN
"Taking a Chance", Force and Ideas: The Early Writings
There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
Truth is death to the portrait painter.
FRANCIS A. DURIVAGE
"The Career of an Artist"
Truth is inclusive of all the virtues, is older than sects and schools, and, like charity, more ancient than mankind.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk