quotations about truth
Truth is truth, though from an enemy, and spoken in malice.
GEORGE LILLO
George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
MARK TWAIN
Following the Equator
Truth doesn't run on time like a commuter train.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
We are not, however, to judge of a truth beforehand by the fruit which we think it will produce. It is the truth which makes free, not any kind of error. It is the truth which sanctifies men, not any kind of falsehood. All truth is safe. All error is dangerous. It is only the truth that the minister is to use. He is never to say, "This is the philosophy that my people are used to and this is the philosophy that I think will do better service, and so, though I do not believe it, I will preach it." Never! It is only the truth he is to use, but he is always to use the truth. Truth is always an instrument.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
The truth of the scholar, alone in his study, does not always accord with what the world at large considers to be true.
EIJI YOSHIKAWA
Musashi
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
Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Basic Education
The true is Godlike: we do not see it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
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
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"
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
A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute.
ALAN ARKIN
Esquire, March 2007
It is dangerous to follow truth too near, lest she should kick out our teeth.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.
WILL ROGERS
The Illiterate Digest
Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion.
GIANNINA BRASCHI
Empire of Dreams
Truth irritates those only whom it enlightens, but does not convert.
PASQUIER QUESNEL
attributed, Day's Collacon
If I hear the way of truth in the morning, I am content even to die in the evening.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects