quotations about truth
Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
Spurn not at seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth;
And beware of seeming truths that grow on the roots of error.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
letter to Elizabeth Pelham, January 4, 1939
If the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
Education and time may improve and augment the uses of truth, but cannot alter the structure, which is ever the same--as proceeding from the Eternal.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in. I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish and no truth to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words.
ELIZABETH GASKELL
North and South
You touch on a disheartening truth. People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.
JAMES BRANCH CABELL
The Cream of the Jest
Truth often spoils the dinner.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
To speak the truth is easy and pleasant.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
The truth has no need to be uttered to be made apparent, and ... one may perhaps gather it with more certainty, without waiting for words and without even taking any account of them, from countless outward signs, even from certain invisible phenomena, analogous in the sphere of human character to what atmospheric changes are in the physical world.
MARCEL PROUST
The Guermantes Way
The longest sword, the strongest lungs, the most voices, are false measures of Truth.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Slender certainty is better than portentous falsehood.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
Every dogma embodies some shade of truth to give it seeming currency.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Who make up the really great men of any age? It is those who have truth woven into every fiber of their being.
HENRY F. KLETZING
"Truth"
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
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 incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
speech in the House of Commons, May 17, 1916
Trump's relationship to the truth seems novel, if only because he doesn't try to hide his relativism. For Trump, truth is always more about how people feel than what may be empirically verifiable. Trump admits as much in The Art of the Deal, where he describes his sales strategy as "truthful hyperbole." For Trump, facts are fragile, and truth is flexible. Trump probably doesn't spend evenings poring over Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge -- but the parallels between Trump's attacks on accepted knowledge and critical philosophy's insistence that we interrogate truth claims suggest that not all assaults on the authority of facts are revolutionary.
CASEY WILLIAMS
"Creating Truth is Assertion of Power", Asharq Al-Awsat, April 19, 2017