quotations about truth
Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Truth never changes.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
Truth ...
Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment.
STEPHEN CRANE
The Black Riders and Other Lines
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
If truth is the lure, humans are fishes.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"If Truth Is the Lure, Humans Are Fishes"
A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defence of it.
JOHN LOCKE
The Reasonableness of Christianity
Truth is a point of view about things.
MARCEL PROUST
attributed, Empire Star
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
OSCAR WILDE
The Nightingale and the Rose
You know the truth, the brick-hard, irregular, slithery surface of truth.
PHILIP K. DICK
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Fall
The truth may often be carried about by those who themselves remain all unaware of it. They bear that which has weight and substance and yet for them has no name whereby it may be evoked or called forth. They go about ignorant of the true nature of their condition, such are the wiles of truth and such its stratagems.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
There are tides of justice surging to the unknown shores of right;
Stars of truth that seek a setting in the dark, untutored night.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Caelestis"
In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed virgin.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Familiar Letters
Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvests and food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
And the truth is cold, as a giant's knee
Will seem cold.
JOHN ASHBERY
"A Last World"
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Above the Battle
The truth
Has to be melted out of our stubborn lives
By suffering.
Nothing speaks the truth,
Nothing tells us how things really are,
Nothing forces us to know
What we do not want to know
Except pain.
And this is how the gods declare their love.
AESCHYLUS
The Oresteia
Where the interests of truth are at actual stake, we ought, perhaps, to sacrifice even that which is our own--if, at least, we are to lay any claim to a philosophic spirit.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
Truth as philosophy is a gas; as art, it is visible steam.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought