quotations about truth
Truth is new, as well as old. It has new forms; and where you may find a new statement, an earnest statement, you may conclude that by the law of progress it is more likely to be a correct statement than that which has been repeated for ages by the lips of tradition.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Truth is that which is. It seems to me that the important thing is for the mind to be in a state when it can allow itself not to ask, not to demand, which does not mean acquiescence, acceptance, but that the mind is really silent.
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
"What was true yesterday is not true today", The New Indian Express, March 2, 2017
It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to everyone.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Vicar of Wakefield
Man is here to search for truth, and to search until he finds it. And he will enjoy it all the more that he has had to search for it.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.
ROBERT FROST
"The Black Cottage"
There are always men who are ready to ask, with an idle curiosity, with an interest too superficial to wait for an answer, this question, "What is truth?" There are always those who are ready to ask it, with a saddened or scornful skepticism, as quite sure there is no answer to be given; no truth; nothing but fancies, speculations, notions, opinions, fleeting, contradictory, and futile. And, thank God, there have always been men, like Jesus, who have seen the truth to be such an transcendent, vital, divine reality that they knew it to be a thing worth living, worth dying for. So Jesus could declare the truth to be, no fancy, no delusion, no mere opinion or speculation, but that thing to bear witness to which was the one purpose of his existence, the thing for which he was born.
SAMUEL LONGFELLOW
"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
You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.
ANNE LAMOTT
Bird by Bird
Truth is the ricochet of a prejudice bouncing off a fact.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
The fact is, all people have a bias of some sort or another. It cannot be helped. All human beings are inculcated with it through their families, friends, culture, education, economic status, and a variety of factors in life. A search for truth is always done by a person, or persons, who are biased in some way. The difficulty for the seeker of authenticity is not to somehow overcome one's biases. The test is when the seeker finds a fact, or data set, that incline against their prejudice. The challenge is to realize that what is real, in any particular case, should prevail over the bias.
D.T. OSBORN
"Truth Is Always on Trial", Liberty Voice, April 14, 2017
The most familiar precepts are not always the truest.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
Truth, as ever, avoids the stranger.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
City of Illusions
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
The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of all things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to truth; all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and grandiloquence, from which we can learn nothing.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The truth is dark under your eyelids.
CHARLES SIMIC
"Against Winter", Walking the Black Cat
Our feelings often color the truth.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Those who pursue the stream of Truth to its sources have much climbing to do, much fatigue to encounter, but they see great sights.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust