quotations about truth
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Brothers Karamazov
For any truth, if overdone ... if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its applicability, can be reduced to absurdity.
VLADIMIR LENIN
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder
The truth can only be recalled, never invented.
MARILYN MONROE
diary, Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters
If you can't tell the truth to the people you care about the most, eventually you stop being able to tell the truth to yourself.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Ashes
An honest man speaks truth, though it may give offense; a vain man, in order that it may.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
So stands Truth before worshipping man; and so she speaks to him. Truth shrouded in mystery; clothed in light; transcending our power to look upon her full and ample proportions. No man has seen her altogether as she is. Yet many a soul, gazing earnestly, reverently, has beheld the outlines; caught here and there a lineament, a feature; has seen that, when the veil has for a moment been parted, which has excited and enraptured him, and of which he has sought to speak to others. And they have, perhaps gladly, perhaps incredulously, listened to his report. No one has ever seen the whole of Truth. And because of that, and of the imperfection of the eyes which have looked, and of the words in which they have reported, the fragmentary reports men have brought back of what they have seen have been so various and seemed so contradictory. But it does not follow, because human philosophies, sciences, theologies, which are these reports, have been so various and fleeting--it does not follow that there is no reality; but only that men have had imperfect and fragmentary vision of the reality; and made imperfect and fragmentary report of it.
SAMUEL LONGFELLOW
"Truth"
There are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's, but behind all of them, there's only one truth and that is that there's no truth.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
Wise Blood
To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.
EUGENE O'NEILL
The Iceman Cometh
Truth is always revolutionary.
ELIAS KHOURY
"Truth is always revolutionary", Malta Today, August 30, 2016
Not everything that's true needs to be said.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.
STEPHEN COLBERT
interview, AV Club, January 25, 2006
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Little Foxes
Truth smells like Chinese food and sweat.
NICHOLSON BAKER
The Anthologist
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
If you seek truth, you will not seek by every means to gain a victory; and if you have found truth, you will have the gain of not being defeated.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
Nature has completely hid truth in the bottom of a well.
DEMOCRITUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
One voice speaking truth is a greater force than fleets and armies.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
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
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
Truth ... is the sovereign good of human nature.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays