TRUTH QUOTES X

quotations about truth

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

DEMOCRITUS

attributed, Day's Collacon


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


Nothing is absolute any longer. There is a choice of beliefs and a choice of truths to go with them. If you choose not to choose then there is no truth at all. There are only points of view.

MORDECAI RICHLER

Son of a Smaller Hero

Tags: Mordecai Richler


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


And diff'ring judgments serve but to declare
That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.

WILLIAM COWPER

Hope

Tags: William Cowper


A concealed truth, that's all a lie is. Either by omission or commission we never do more than obscure. The truth stays in the undergrowth, waiting to be discovered.

JOSEPHINE HART

Damage

Tags: Josephine Hart


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

HORACE MANN

Thoughts


Truth ... is the sovereign good of human nature.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays


Truth shines more brightly the more widely it is diffused.

JOHN WYCLIFFE

attributed, Day's Collacon


Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

L'Envoi

Tags: James Russell Lowell


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

MICHEL FOUCAULT

History of Sexuality

Tags: Michel Foucault


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

LAURELL K. HAMILTON

Guilty Pleasures


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


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


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


Truths kindle light for truths.

LUCRETIUS

De Rerum Natura

Tags: Lucretius


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

KEN KESEY

Sometimes a Great Notion

Tags: Ken Kesey


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

Tags: John Locke


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


The nearer we approach to the God of Truth, the farther we are from the danger of Error.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms