quotations about truth
You must be ever vigilant to discover the unifying Truth behind all the scintillating variety.
SATHYA SAI BABA
Thought for the Day, October 5, 2008
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
The concept of truth has clearly fallen on hard times, and the consequences of rejecting it are ravaging human society. Falsehood is so appealingly packaged that without good knowledge of the truth, one could be misled and ensnared. However, acquaintance with the truth would help identify the length and breath of falsehood, unmask and demystify its attendant effect.
CHAMBERLAIN C. OGUNEDO
"And the truth shall set you free: What is truth?", The Guardian, November 27, 2016
It is the way with half the truth amidst which we live, that it only haunts us and makes dull pulsations that are never born into sound.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
No man rides so high and in such good company as the man that allies himself to a truth.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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
It is twice as hard to crush a half-truth as a whole lie.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The truth is never dangerous. Except when told.
PHILIP MOELLER
Helena's Husband
The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
lecture at Workers' Educational Association, May 1940
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
TRUTH, such as it appears to us, can only be relative, because we ourselves, being relative creatures, have only a relative perception and judgment. We appreciate that which is true to ourselves, not that which is universally true. And truth may well assume an aspect to one different from that it assumes to another.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
For truth has such a face and such a mien
As to be loved needs only to be seen.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Hind and the Panther
Truth must of necessity be stranger than fiction ... for fiction is the creation of the human mind, and therefore is congenial to it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Club of Queer Trades
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Sohrab and Rustum
As the snow before the sun, even so is a polished lie before the naked truth.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
History, mythology, and folktales are filled with stories of people punished for saying the truth. Only the Fool, exempt from society's rules, is allowed to speak with complete freedom.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry
Truth, as ever, avoids the stranger.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
City of Illusions
Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Truth draws strength from itself and not from the number of votes in its favour.
POPE BENEDICT XVI
Address to the International Diplomats, March 18, 2006