TRUTH QUOTES XI

quotations about truth

Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute.

ALAN ARKIN

Esquire, March 2007

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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


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

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Will you tell me how a man's to live, and face his life, if he can't believe that truth's like a fire, and will burn through and be seen though it takes all the years there are? While I stand up and have breath in my lungs I shall be one flame of that fire; it's all the life I have.

MAXWELL ANDERSON

Winterset

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It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.

EPICTETUS

Fragments

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It is dangerous to follow truth too near, lest she should kick out our teeth.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

attributed, Day's Collacon

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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

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Truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an original affinity with freedom.

MICHEL FOUCAULT

History of Sexuality

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Truth is the backbone of character. Nothing is beautiful or strong or permanent without truth. All qualifications that go to make up noble manhood count for naught where there is not a persistent adherence to truthfulness. As the mirror reflects objects as they are, without alteration, so truth presents everything as it is.

HENRY F. KLETZING

"Truth"


Truth is truth, though from an enemy, and spoken in malice.

GEORGE LILLO

George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant


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

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Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.

ROBERT M. PIRSIG

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

MARK TWAIN

Following the Equator

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You know the truth, the brick-hard, irregular, slithery surface of truth.

PHILIP K. DICK

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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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

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Truth, though hewn like the mangled form of Osiris into a thousand pieces, and scattered to the four winds, shall be gathered limb to limb, and moulded with every joint and member into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


If we think we have found truth for ourselves, above all things, let us not impose it on one another. Let us lock upon it all the doors of consciousness. For however inspiring it may be to us, however ennobling, when once we try to impose it on another it becomes a poison.

JOHN DANIEL BARRY

"Truth", Intimations

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It is some disaster for any mind to hold any one thing for truth that is untrue, however insignificant it be, or however honestly it be held. It is a greater disaster when the false prejudice bars the way to some truth behind it, which, but for it, would find an entrance to the soul; and the greatness of the disaster will in this case be measured by the importance of the excluded truth.

HENRY PARRY LIDDON

Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford

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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"