quotations about truth
Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Guilty Pleasures
No two things can be so contradictory, so much at variance as truth and falsehood; and yet none are so mixed and united.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections
Truths kindle light for truths.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
He that hath truth on his side is a fool as well as a coward if he is afraid to own it because of other men's opinions.
DANIEL DEFOE
The History of the Union Between England and Scotland
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
Truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an original affinity with freedom.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
History of Sexuality
Truth shines more brightly the more widely it is diffused.
JOHN WYCLIFFE
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
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
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
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
Human truth is always soiled with falsehood.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
L'Envoi
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
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
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
The nearer we approach to the God of Truth, the farther we are from the danger of Error.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms