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 TRUTH . . . see: "CANDOR" see: "FACTS" see: "HONESTY" see: "INTEGRITY" see: "SINCERITY" see: "STATISTICS" see: "CHARACTER" for other related links Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. "Argument in Defense of the [British] Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials," [December 1770]. A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side. --attributed to Joseph Addison (16721719) English essayist, poet, and dramatist. The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. --Herbert Sebastian Agar (18971980) American poet asnd writer. _A Time for Greatness_ [1942] An error is the more dangerous the more truth it contains. --Henri Frιdιrick Amiel (18211881) Swiss critic, _Journal Intime_ [1883], entry of 12 November 1852 - Truth is violated by falsehood, and it may be equally outraged by silence. --Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330c. 400) Roman historian. Attributed in Henry Southgate (ed.) _Many Thoughts of Many Minds_ [1862, 3rd edition]. Truth is often attended with danger. [Pericula veritati saepe contigua.] --Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330 c. 400) Roman historian. - - Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it. --Arabian proverb When you shoot an arrow of truth, dip its point in honey. --Arabian proverb Examine what is said, not who speaks. --Arabian Proverb - While both [Plato and truth] are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. --Aristotle (384322 B.C.) Greek philosopher. _Nicomachean Ethics_, bk I, ch. I Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. --Augustine, St. of Hippo (354430) Christian theologian and bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa [396430]. _Confessiones_ (The Confessions), V, 6 [c.400] Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true. --Richard Bach (1936 ) American writer. A platitude is simply a truth repeated until people get tired of hearing it. --Stanley Baldwin (18671947) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19231924], [19241929], and [19351937]; speech, House of Commons [29 May 1924]. Weary the path that does not challenge reason. Doubt is an incentive to truth, and patient inquiry leadeth the way. --Hosea Ballou (17711852) American theologian. Attributed in Rev. James Wood (ed.) _Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 530 [1893]. Whatever is only almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is the more likely to lead astray. --Henry Ward Beecher (18131887) American Congregational minister; brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher. Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 149 [1908 ed.]. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few. --George Berkeley (16851753) Anglo-Irish philosopher. _Siris_ [1744] And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. --Bible "John" 8:32 - As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. --Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (18181885) American humorist. "Affurisms" _Josh Billings: His Sayings_ [1865] It iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain't so. --Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (18181885) American humorist. _Everybody's Friend, or Josh Billings' Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosphy of Wit and Humor_ [1874] - I have found that nothing so deceives your adversaries as telling them the truth. --attributed to Otto von Bismarck (18151898) Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia 18621890. He unified Germany with a series of successful wars and became the first Chancellor 18711890 of the German Empire. A truth that's told with bad intent, Beats all the Lies you can invent. --William Blake (17571827) English poet. "Auguries of Innocence", 1.53 [1789] It was proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority were the majority. Truth does not change because it is or is not believed by a majority of people. --Giordano [Filippo] Bruno (15481600) Italian philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician. In Coulson Turnbull _Life and Teachings of Giordano Bruno_ [1913]. Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. --Edmund Burke (17291797) Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters. _Preface to Brissot's Address_ [1794] (Wikiquote) Truth generally is kindness, but where the two diverge and collide, kindness should override truth. --Samuel Butler (18351902) English novelist, essayist, and critic. _The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_, ed. Henry Festing Jones [1917 ed.] - Opinions are made to be changed or how is truth to be got at? --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (17881824) English Romantic poet and satirist. Letter to John Murray [9 May 1817]. Tis strange but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (17881824) English Romantic poet and satirist. _Don Juan_ [1823], canto XIV, st. 101. - Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an eloquent man not speaking the truth? --Thomas Carlyle (17951881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. Address as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University [1866]. - 'Just the place for a Snark!' I have said it twice; That alone should encourage the crew; 'Just the place for a Snark!' I have said it thrice; What I tell you three times is true. --Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (18321898) English writer and logician. "The Hunting of the Snark" [1872] 'Contrariwise', continued Tweedledee, 'If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.' --Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (18321898) English writer and logician. _Thorough the Looking-Glass_, ch. 4 [1872] - I have found out the art of deceiving diplomatists; I speak the truth, and I am certain they will not believe me. --Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (18101861) Piedmontese statesman who helped bring about the unification of Italy and served as the first prime minister. Quoted in Charles de Mazade _The Life of Count Cavour_ [1877]. - Truth may be stretched, but it cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water. --Miguel de Cervantes (15471616) Spanish novelist. _Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605-1615] I must speak the truth, and nothing but the truth. --Miguel de Cervantes (15471616) Spanish novelist. _Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605-1615] Pt. 1 [1605], bk. 4, ch. 3. - - Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. Ignorance may deride it. But in the end, there it is. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. - - I only wish I could discover the truth as easily as I can expose falsehood. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. Though the whole world grumble, I will speak my mind. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. _De oretore_, 1.44, tr. E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham [1942] A liar is not believed even though he tell the truth. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. _De divinatione_ (On Divination), II, 71 [44 BC], as quoted in Kate Louise Roberts _Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_, p. 485 [1922]. - Tell the truth. --Grover Cleveland (18371908) 22nd [1885-1889] and 24th [18931897] President of the U.S.. On being asked by his campaign managers what to do about the scandal centering on his liason with Maria Halpin, quoted in "Harper's Weekly" [16 August 1884]. Truth is a good dog; but beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) English poet, critic, and philosopher. Henry Nelson Coleridge (ed.) _Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge_ [1835] Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it. --Confucius (551479 B.C.) K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher. Habit with him was all the test of truth, It must be right: I've done it from my youth. --George Crabbe (17541832) English poet. "The Vicar", letter 3 _The Borough_ [1810] If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things. --Renι Descartes (15961650) French philosopher and mathematician. _Discourse on Method and the Meditations_ [1637] The truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind. --Emily Dickinson (18301886) American poet. We swallow at one gulp a lie which flatters us, but only drop by drop a truth which is bitter to us. --Denis Diderot (17131784) French writer and philosopher. Attributed in Rev. James Wood (ed.) _Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 529 [1893]. Justice is truth in action. --Benjamin Disraeli (18041881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 18741880]. Speech in House of Commons [11 February 1851]. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. --Frederick Douglass [Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey] (c.18181895) American abolitionist, reformer, and writer. The story you have just heard is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. --"Dragnet" (U.S. radio show, 19491957) Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. --Max Ehrmann (18721945) American lawyer. "Desiderata" [1927] - Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. From an April 1955 draft of a television address to be delivered on occasion of the seventh anniversary of Israel's independence; as quoted in Alice Calaprice & Freeman Dyson _The Ultimate Quotable Einstein_ [2010]. Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks... Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-born theoretical physicist; won 1921 Nobel Prize for Photoelectric Effect, best known for Theories of Relativity; initiated U.S. nuclear program in WW II; "Time" (magazine) [(23 December 1940], p. 38. - - Whenever the truth is injured, defend it. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Journal_ [29 March 1834] Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. "Prudence" _Essays_, First Series [1841] People only see what they are prepared to see. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Journals_ [February 1864] - Confession is good for the soul. --David Fergusson _Scottish proverbs_ [c. 1641] A Man must have a good deal of Vanity who believes, and a good deal of Boldness who affirms, that all the Doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects, are false. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. Letter to his Father & Mother [13 April 1738]. Consider not so much who speaks, as what is spoken. --Thomas Fuller (16541734) English writer and physician. Comp., _Introductio ad Prudentiam_ [1731] Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected. --attributed to Mohandas K. Gandhi (18691948) Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule. An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper. --Kahlil Gibran (18831931) Lebanese poet. _Sand and Foam_ [1926] Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. --Andrι Gide (18691951) French novelist and critic; awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947. _Ainsi Soit Il ou les Jeux Sont Faits Essai_ [1952] It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 589 [1891]. Man associates ideas not according to logic or verifiable exactitude, but according to his pleasure and interests. It is for this reason that most truths are nothing but prejudices. --Rιmy de Gourmont (18581915) French novelist, poet, playwright, and philosopher, _The Dissociation of Ideas_ [1899] Don't believe the man who tells you there are two sides to every question. There is only one side to the truth. --William Peter Hamilton (18671929) Editor of _The Wall Street Journal_. Quoted in Michael Wolff _The Man Who Owns the News_ [2008]. The greatest truths are the simplest: and so are the greatest men. --Augustus William Hare (17921834) English biographer and compiler of travel books. _Guesses at Truth_ [1827] (Co-written with brother Julius) An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may. --William Hazlitt (17781830) English essayist. _Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims_, 387 [1823] It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: 'Is it true in and for itself?' --Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831) German philosopher. _Philosophy of History_ [1832] - If 'everybody knows' such-and-such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] Only a sadistic scoundrel or a fool tells the bald truth on social occasions. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] - All truths are not to be told. --George Herbert (15931633) English religious poet. _Jacula Prudentum_ (Outlandish Proverbs) [1640] - It is treason to sacrifice love of truth, intellectual honesty, loyalty to the laws and methods of the mind, to any other interests, including those of one's country. Whenever propaganda and conflict of interests threatens to devalue, distort, and do violence to the truth...it is our duty to resist and save the truth, since that is the supreme article of our creed. The scholar who knowingly speaks, writes, or teaches falsehood, who knowingly supports lies and deceptions, not only violates organic principles. He also, no matter how things may seem at the given moment, does his people a grave disservice. --Hermann Hesse (18771962) German novelist, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. _Magister Ludi_ [1943], ch. 11 "The Circular Letter" There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. --Hermann Hesse (18771962) German novelist, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. _Magister Ludi_ [1943], ch. 1 "The Call" - There is no such thing as truth. --Adolf Hitler (18891945) German dictator. _Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925] To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats we know it not. --Eric Hoffer (19021983) American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982. - Rough work iconoclasm but the only way to get at truth. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Professor at the Breakfast Table_ [1860] Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a foot-ball, and it will be round and full at evening. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Professor at the Breakfast Table_ [1860] - Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth . . . Truth- telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: every single one was a liar. --J. Edgar Hoover (18951972) Director of the FBI [19241972]. "What I Would Tell a Son" in _Family Weekly_ [14 July 1963] It is good policy to leave a few things unsaid. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." _The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams_ [1923] - Veracity is the heart of morality. --T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley (18251895) English biologist {grandfather of Aldous Huxley}. Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. --T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley (18251895) English biologist {grandfather of Aldous Huxley}. _The Coming of Age of The Origin of Species_ [1880] - You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth. --Henrik Ibsen (18281906) Norwegian playwright. _An Enemy of the People_ [1882], Act V The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards. --Alexander Jablokov (b. 1956) American novelist and short story writer. "The Place of No Shadows" in _Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine_ [1990] Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself. She is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weaponsfree argument and debate. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Quoted in Samuel Eagle Forman _The Life and Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, p. 413 [2nd ed., 1900]. It has always been the best policy to speak the truth unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. --Jerome K Jerome (18591927) English novelist and playwright. In "The Idler" [February 1892]. Do not throw your pearls before swine lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. --Jesus (A.D. 1st cent) "Matthew" 7:6 - I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences; you are to tell the truth. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ (13 June 1784) [1791]. Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. 1780 remark quoted in James Boswell _Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791]. - Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. --Joseph Joubert (17541824) French philosopher. _The Pensees of Joubert_ [1877], selected & translated by Henry Attwell. When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. --John Keats (17951821) English poet. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" l. 46 [1819] in _Poems_ [1820] How beautiful is that which [Aristotle] said in this matter! We ought not to be ashamed of appreciating the truth and of acquiring it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us. For the seeker of truth nothing takes precedence over the truth; and there is no disparagement of the truth, nor belittling of him who utters it or of him who conveys it. No one is diminished by the truth; rather does the truth ennoble all. --al-Kindi (801873) Islamic philosopher known as "The philosopher of the Arabs." Fiction is truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till somebody had told a story. --Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet. _A Book of Words_ "Fiction" [1928] Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess. --Walter Savage Landor (17751864) English poet. _Imaginary Conversations_ [18241853] He who, when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done, is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice, and never ceases nibbling. --Johann Kaspar Lavater (17411801) Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics. _Aphorisms on Man_ [2nd ed., 1789] The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce[s] them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. --Gustave Le Bon (18411931) French social psychologist best known for his study of the psychological characteristics of crowds [EB]. __The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind__ [1895] The search for truth is more precious than its possession. --Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (17291781) German dramatist. Attributed in _Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association_, vols. 46-47 [1907]. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. --C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis (18981963) British scholar and novelist. _Mere Christianity_ [1952] - Stand with anybody that stands *right*. Stand will him while he is right and *part* with him when he goes wrong. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Peoria, Illinois [16 October 1854]. Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. Letter to Secretary Stanton, refusing to dismiss Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair [18 July 1864]. - It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth. --John Locke (16321704) English political and educational philosopher. _An Essay Concerning Human Understanding_, bk. 4, ch. 7, sec. II [1690] Style will find reader and shape convictions, while mere truth only gathers dust on the shelf. --James Russell Lowell (18191891) American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat. _Political Essays_ [1888] Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy, have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging. --Martin Luther (14831546) German Protestant theologian. _Table Talk_, 53, [1566], tr. William Hazlitt [1857] There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. _The Prince_ [written 1513] ch. 23 When I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well-established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools I prefer to address myself to the one man. --Moses Maimonides (11351204) Jewish philosopher, jurist, and physician. _The Guide for the Perplexed_, introduction [c. 1190] If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both. --Horace Mann (17961859) American educator. _Journal_ [29 October 1838] If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us in a rage. --Andrι Maurois (18851967) (pseudonym of Ιmile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog) French author. - The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It is easier to grasp. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. The truth, to the overwhelming majority of mankind, is indistinguishable from a headache. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. Lecture before the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, New York City [4 January 1940]. - We are too much like Pilate. We are always asking, "What is truth?" and then crucifying the truth that stands before our eyes. --Thomas Merton (19151968) American Trappist monk and author. _No Man Is An Island_ [1955], Chapter 10, Section 3 There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realised until personal experience has brought it home. --John Stuart Mill (18061873) English philosopher and social reformer. Vices are often hid under the name of virtues, and the practice of them followed by the worst consequences. I have seen ladies indulge their own ill-humor by being very rude and impertinent, and think they deserve approbation by saying, 'I love to speak the truth.' --Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [nιe Pierrepont] (16891762) English aristocrat and writer. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Notable Thoughts About Women_, p. 381 [1882]. - If falsehood had, like truth, only one face, we should be on more equal terms with it, for we should consider the contrary to what the liar said as certain; but the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms, and is a field of boundless extent. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essais_ (Essays) [pub. 15801588], bk. I Ch. IX "Of Liars" We must not always say everything, for that would be folly; but what we say must be what we think. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. "Of Presumption", _Essays_ [1588] Our truth of nowadays is not what is, but what others can be convinced of. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essays_ [1588], tr. Donald M. Frame [1958] - This world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow, There's nothing true but Heaven. --Thomas Moore (17791852) Irish poet, satirist, composer, and musician. "This World Is All a Fleeting Show" in _Sacred Songs_ [1816]. Tell the truth when you can, and when you can't, don't tell a lie. --Bill Moyers (1934 ) American journalist and public commentator. Recalling his father's dictum. Let us be a little humble; let us think that the truth may not perhaps be entirely with us. --Jawaharlal Nehru (18891964) Indian statesman. In _Jawaharlal Nehru's Speeches, March 1953August 1957_, vol. [1963]; pub. by Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. --Sir Isaac Newton (16421727) English mathematician and physicist. Quoted in "Christian Monitor, and Religious Intelligencer" [4 July 1812]. Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _Human, all too Human_ [18781879] Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ [1949] - Truth never yet fell dead in the streets; it has such affinity with the soul of man, the seed however broadcast will catch somewhere and produce its hundredfold. --Theodore Parker (18101860) American preacher and abolitionist. _A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion_ [1842] Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so. --Theodore Parker (18101860) American preacher and abolitionist. _A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion_ [1842] - Qui ne gueule pas la verite, quand il sait la verite, se fait le complice des menteurs et des faussaires. (He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.) --Charles Pιguy (18731914) French poet and essayist. _Basic Verities_ [1943] "Lettre du Provincial" [21 December 1899] 142. Nothing does Reason more Right, than the _Coolness_ of those that offer it: For Truth often suffers more by the _Heat_ of its Defenders, than from the Arguments of its Opposers. --William Penn (16441718) Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe. _Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims_, [1682] [_italics_ by Penn] You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the presidency. --Wendell Phillips (18111884) American abolitionist and reformer. Speech [7 November 1860]. A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. --Max Planck [Karl Ernst Ludwig] (18581947) German theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory; winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918. _Scientific Autobiography, and Other Papers_ "Scientific Autobiography" [1948] They deem him their worse enemy who tells them the truth. --Plato (427?347 B.C.) Greek philosopher. _The Republic_, 4.426, tr. Benjamin Jowett [1894] In excessive altercation, truth is lost. --Publilius Syrus (8543 B.C.) Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave. _Maxims_ Speak the truth and shame the Devil. --Franηois Rabelais (c. 1494 c. 1553] French humanist, satirist, and physician. _Gargantua and Pantagruel_ [1552] bk. 5, author's prologue. It is a very lonely life that a man leads, who becomes aware of truths before their time. --Thomas Brackett Reed (18391902 In an address c. 1899, quoted in William Alexander Robinson _Thomas B. Reed, Parliamentarian_ [1930]. What is wanted is not the will-to-believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. Lecture delivered at South Place Institute [24 March 1922]. All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. --attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) German philosopher. Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now always. --Albert Schweitzer (18751965) Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor. _Out of My Life and Thought_ [1949] I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as 'twas said to me. --Sir Walter Scott (17711832) Scottish novelist and poet. _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ [1805] A writer who says there are no truths, or that all truth is merely relative, is asking you not to believe him. So don't. --Roger Scruton (b. 1944) British writer and philosopher. _Modern Philosophy_ [1995] I would offend with the truth then please with adulation. --attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. - Tell truth and shame the devil. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Henry IV_ III, i, [1597] This above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Hamlet_, I, iii [1601] - Speak the truth but leave immediately after. --Slovenian proverb I would ask you to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I seem to you to be speaking the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my enthusiasm, and like the bee, leave my sting in you before I die. --Socrates (470?399 B.C.) Greek philosopher. In Plato (427?-327 B.C.), _Phaedo_, 91, tr. Benjamin Jowett [1894]. The truth is always the strongest argument. --Sophocles (496?406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. _Phaedra_, Frag. 737 - If you want the truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world. it will fly; it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'a lie will go round the world while truth is putting its boots on.' --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (18341892) English nonconformist preacher. _Gems from Spurgeon_ [1859] If a crooked stick is before you, you need not explain how crooked it is. Lay a straight one down by the side of it, and the work is well done. Preach the truth, and error will stand abashed in its presence. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (18341892) English nonconformist preacher. Quoted in John H. Aughey _Spiritual Gems of The Ages_ [1886]. - Truth in spirit, not truth to the letter, is the true veracity. --Robert Louis Stevenson (18501894) Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist. _Virginibus Puerisque_ [1881], "Truth of Intercourse" To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,this is the mark and character of intelligence. --Emanuel Swedenborg (16881772) Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. Quoted by Ralph Waldo Emerson in _Essays_, First Series [1841] Essay # 9 "The Over-Soul". Speaking the truth is a luxury few people can afford. --Thomas Szasz (b. 1920) American psychiatrist. _The Second Sin_ [1973] "Language" When I can look Life in the eyes, Grown calm and very coldly wise, Life will have given me the Truth, And taken in exchangemy youth. --Sara Teasdale (18841933) American poet. Winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1918. "Wisdom" in Harper's (mag), vol. 134 [1917] Do not be influenced by the importance of the writer, and whether his learning be great or small, but let the love of pure truth draw you to read. Do not inquire, "Who said this?" but pay attention to what is said. --Thomas a' Kempis (13801471) German ascetical writer. _The Imitation of Christ_ [c. 1420], bk. 1, ch. 4: "On Prudence in Action" - It takes two to speak the truth, one to speak, and another to hear. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_ [1849] Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. _Walden_ [1854], "Conclusion" You do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. Entry dated 15 March 1854 in his _Journal_ [1906]. Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. Entry dated 11 November 1854, in his _Journal_ [1906]. - - I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. --Leo Tolstoy (18281910) Russian novelist. _What Is Art?_ [1898] The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth. --Leo Tolstoy (18281910) Russian novelist. _Sevastopol_ "In May 1855", as quoted in Louise & Aylmer Maude (trans.) _Sevastopol and other Military Tales_ [1903]. When I have one foot in the grave, I will tell the truth about women. I shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me and say, 'Do what you like now.' --Leo Tolstoy (18281910) Russian novelist. Attributed in "The Golden Book Magazine" [1935]. - I never give them hell. I just tell the truth, and they think it's hell. --Harry S. Truman (18841972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945-1953]. Attributed in "Forbes" [1986]. - You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There were things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. Opening lines of _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ [1884]. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Following the Equator_ [1897], ch. XV epigraph "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were permanent Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was seeking after political Truth he found it in one or another of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth; if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or another of the three thousand that are in the market. In any case, when he found the Truth he sought no further, but from that day forth, with his soldering iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other, he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with objectors. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _What Is Man?_ [1906] If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Mark Twain's Notebook_ [1935] Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. Quoted in Edgar Lee Masters _Mark Twain a Portrait_ [1938]. Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in it's use. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. Attributed in John P. Holms & Karin Baji (comps.) _Bite-Size Twain_ [1998]. A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. --attributed to Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. (see Spurgeon (above) for correct attribution.) Never tell the truth to those unworthy of it. --attributed to Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. - There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. Letter to Cardinal de Bernis [23 April 1761]. There are no whole truths. All truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. --Alfred North Whitehead (18611947) British philosopher and mathematician. _Dialogues_ [1954] - A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Portrait of Mr. W.H._, ch. 1 [1889] The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Importance of Being Earnest_, act 1 [1895] - If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you. --attributed to Billy Wilder (19062002) Austrian-born American film director and screenwriter. [Advice to a young diplomat:] Tell the truth, and so puzzle and confound your adversaries. --Henry Wotton (15681639) English poet and diplomat. Attributed in Kate Louise Roberts _Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_ [1922]. The truth is out there. --Catchphrase, "The X-Files" [American TV show 19932002] Flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies. --Yiddish proverb - When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty. --anon., epigraph to Arthur Ponsonby's _Falsehood in Wartime_ [1928]; attributed also to Hiram Johnson, speaking in the U.S. Senate [1918], but not recorded in his speech; possibly based on a passage by Samuel Johnson in "The Idler" [11 November 1758] {ODTQ}. note: Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. _The Idler_, Num. 30 [11 November 1758] also see: The first casualty of war is truth. --Sherwood Eddy and Kirby Page _The Abolition of War_ [1924], as quoted in Fred R. Shapiro (ed.) _The Yale Book of Quotations_ [2006]. - The collision between truth and the world can only have one outcome, since the world will put on any mask, stoop to any deception, to protect itself, and truth cannot ... All the great stories have the wrong ending. --Unknown, in the "New Yorker" [28 October 1991] - If a thousand people say something foolish, it's still foolish. Truth is never dependent upon consensus of opinion. --Unknown & see: If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _A Writer's Notebook_ [1949] - ----- aphorism [AF-uh-riz-uhm], noun: A terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation. apothegm (noun) ['ζ-pκ-them] A terse saying that sums up a philosophical insight or conclusion; a maxim, an aphorism. A short, witty, and instructive saying. Synonyms: adage, aphorism, maxim, proverb, saw. ostensible [ah-STEN-suh-bul], adjective: Represented or appearing to be true, but not necessarily so. sententious (adjective) 1: Using or marked by pompous, high-flown moralizing. 2: Using many truisms or maxims. 3: Rich in pointed, concise truths. Related: meaningful Derived: sententiously, adv. ; sententiousness, n. verisimilitude [ver-uh-suh-MIL-uh-tood]; noun: The appearance of truth; the quality of seeming to be true. veritable [VER-ih-tuh-bul], adjective: Agreeable to truth or to fact; actual; real; true; genuine. end page | TABLOIDS - TALENT | TALK - TAYLOR (ELIZABETH) | TAXATION | TEACHERS / TEACHING | TEAMWORK - TELEVANGELISTS | TELEVISION - TELEVISION SHOWS | TEMPER - THANKSGIVING | TERRORISM | THATCHER - THINKING | THOUGHT POLICE - THRIFT | TIME | TIME TRAVEL - TODAY | TOLERANCE - TOYS | TRADITION - TRANSIENCE | TRAVEL | TREACHERY - TRIVIA | TROUBLE - TRUST | TRUTH | TRYING - TYRANNY | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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