quotations about truth
It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
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
I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
Collected Stories and Other Writings
The truth can both lift up and knock down.
KIRBY LARSON
Hattie Ever After
A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Young India, January 8, 1925
Condemn not truth for error's deeds.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"Flowers and Weeds"
Truth is literally that which is without secrecy, what discloses itself without a veil.
R. D. LAING
attributed, R. D. Laing: The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy
There must be repressed truth even in lies.
STANISLAW IGNACY WITKIEWICZ
The Madman and the Nun
Truth -- there's no such thing.
TANKRED DORST
Freedom for Clemens
Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
When all is said and done, how do we know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Celtic Twilight
Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Truth is universal. Perception of truth is not.
ANONYMOUS
The temple of truth is built indeed of stones of crystal, but, inasmuch as men have been concerned in rearing it, it has been consolidated by a cement composed of baser materials.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Truth is what every man sees lurking at the bottom of his own soul, like the oyster shell housewives put in the kitchen kettle to collect the lime from the water. By and by each man's iridescent oyster shell of Truth becomes coated with the lime of prejudice and hearsay.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
The heart is an artist that paints over what profoundly disturbs us, leaving on the canvas a less dark, less sharp version of the truth.
DEAN KOONTZ
Forever Odd
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
letter, September 6, 1955
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth", Essays
Serious misfortunes, originating in misrepresentation, frequently flow and spread before they can be dissipated by truth.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to John Jay, May 8, 1796