quotations about truth
There is a deeper pleasure in following truth to the scaffold or the cross, than in joining the multitudinous retinue, and mingling our shouts with theirs, when victorious error celebrates its triumphs.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Truth, I have learned, differs for everybody. Just as no two people ever see a rainbow in exactly the same place -- and yet both most certainly see it, while the person seemingly standing right underneath it does not see it at all -- so truth is a question of where one stands, and the direction one is looking in at the time.
IAIN M. BANKS
Inversions
History, mythology, and folktales are filled with stories of people punished for saying the truth. Only the Fool, exempt from society's rules, is allowed to speak with complete freedom.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry
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
Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying is thither in a straight line.
JOHN TILLOTSON
The Works of the Most Reverend John Tillotson, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Sohrab and Rustum
One truth teacheth another.
SIR J. REYNOLDS
attributed, Day's Collacon
As the snow before the sun, even so is a polished lie before the naked truth.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
The truth--a hideous spectacle!
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth Penetrant"
Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Stronger than steel is the sword of the Spirit;
Swifter than arrows, the light of the truth.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Nun of Nidaros", Tales of a Wayside Inn
There are truths so prosaic, so dense, so dull, that one can hardly state them without suggesting the idea of something subtler or more interesting beyond.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, June 9, 1880
When the love of truth rules in the heart, the light of truth will guide the practice.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Truth rides a long road.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
All men need truth as they need water; if wise men are as high grounds where the springs rise, ordinary men are the lower grounds which their waters nourish.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
A Game of Thrones
We're told that we're living in a post-truth (or post-factual) era, a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, a culture that eschews a foundation of solid facts. Indeed, it is said that in this post-truth time, facts have become "secondary" if not entirely irrelevant. But who gets stuck with this "post-truth" label -- and it is typically used as an insult -- is not so simple.
GILBERT DOCTOROW
"Complexities of a 'Post-Truth' Era", Consortium News, May 11, 2017
Truth is always opposed to the destructiveness of deception, duplicity, and hypocrisy. Although deviances may have their moment, truth must be forever upheld, for in due time, it will have its victory.
VINCENT J. BOVE
"Trojan Horse in the Heart of America", The Epoch Times, May 10, 2017
Truth shall fear no open shame.
ANNE BOLEYN
attributed, Day's Collacon
For decades, critical social scientists and humanists have chipped away at the idea of truth. We've deconstructed facts, insisted that knowledge is situated and denied the existence of objectivity. The bedrock claim of critical philosophy, going back to Kant, is simple: We can never have certain knowledge about the world in its entirety. Claiming to know the truth is therefore a kind of assertion of power.
CASEY WILLIAMS
"Creating Truth is Assertion of Power", Asharq Al-Awsat, April 19, 2017