quotations about truth
The practice of utter sincerity towards other men would avail to no good end, if they were incapable of practising it towards their own minds. In fact, truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Essay on Christianity"
That which is not formed of truth is of bad texture.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
I don't deal in unvarnished truths. It's the varnish that counts. That makes it true.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
An error is more useful than truth: truth is a thought suffering from arteriosclerosis.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Future of the Theater
There is an inherent and absolute authority in all truth, which makes it, in the end, unconquerable and victorious. The truth is mighty, and will prevail. What is founded on error, has rottenness for its corner-stone; and although it may temporarily be upheld by foreign aid, yet, deserted by its supporters, it always finally tumbles to the ground.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
The greatest of characters, no doubt, would be he, who, free of all trifling accidental helps, could see objects through one grand immutable medium, always at hand, and proof against illusion and time, reflecting every object in its true shape and colour through all the fluctuation of things.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.
AYN RAND
Atlas Shrugged
But the truth is influential, it is powerful, it reaches the recesses of the mind. You cannot ask the truth not to exert its powers. The truth is one of the most important instruments in the people's struggle for food and freedom. We are out to exercise the occult powers of the truth.
JULIAN BECK
The Life of the Theatre
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 its excess.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
Dark should torch of Truth be never,
For it burns with love divine.
Light it should all people, nations,
In our hearts should be its shrine.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Truth's Torch"
Truth never hurts the teller.
ROBERT BROWNING
Fifine at the Fair
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
We grease the truth with rhyme.
NIK HOUSER
"A Beginner's Guide to Sandcastle Alchemy", Weird Tales, Summer 2011
The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth!
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex
Each truth helps on the discovery of another.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
And how is one to know what is Truth? He thinks one thing before lunch; after a stirring bout with corned beef and onions the shining vision is strangely altered. Which is Truth?
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
We are too small, all but a few of us, to hold more than a little of the truth.
JOHN C. BAILEY
The Claims of French Poetry
Truth and Good are one; and Beauty dwells in them, and they in her.
MARK AKENSIDE
The Pleasures of Imagination
If you want to see the truth, you must be brave enough to look.
RUNE LAZULI