TRUTH QUOTES XX

quotations about truth

I see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.

ANTONIN ARTAUD

Selected Writings

Tags: Antonin Artaud


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


Men never make truths; they only recognize the value of this currency of God. They find truths, as men sometimes find bills, in the street, and only recognize the value of that which other persons have drawn.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


We can, in general, be much less sure of the truth of a thing, than of the falsehood; because though every part we have seen may agree, yet we cannot tell how many may be behind, and one failure of connection will be sufficient to falsify the whole.

FULKE GREVILLE

Maxims, Characters, and Reflections


The sublime delight of truthful speech to one who has the great gift of uttering it, will make itself felt even through the pangs of sorrow.

GEORGE ELIOT

Felix Holt


We're told that we're living in a post-truth (or post-factual) era, a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, a culture that eschews a foundation of solid facts. Indeed, it is said that in this post-truth time, facts have become "secondary" if not entirely irrelevant. But who gets stuck with this "post-truth" label -- and it is typically used as an insult -- is not so simple.

GILBERT DOCTOROW

"Complexities of a 'Post-Truth' Era", Consortium News, May 11, 2017


O Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then the marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they often and diversely, and in many and huge books, echoed of Thee to me, though it was but an echo? And these were the dishes wherein to me, hungering after Thee, they, instead of Thee, served up the Sun and Moon, beautiful works of Thine, but yet Thy works, not Thyself, no nor Thy first works. For Thy spiritual works are before these corporeal works, celestial though they be, and shining. But I hungered and thirsted not even after those first works of Thine, but after Thee Thyself, the Truth, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: yet they still set before me in those dishes, glittering fantasies, than which better were it to love this very sun (which is real to our sight at least), than those fantasies which by our eyes deceive our mind. Yet because I thought them to be Thee, I fed thereon; not eagerly, for Thou didst not in them taste to me as Thou art; for Thou wast not these emptinesses, nor was I nourished by them, but exhausted rather.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Confessions

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The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom.--Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.

JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER

Aphorisms on Man

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The semblance of absolute truth is nothing but absolute conformism.

PAUL FEYERABEND

Against Method


Fairer than all fancies is the truth.

CAROLINE SPENCER

"A Vigil"

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There's many a true word spoken in jest.

JAMES JOYCE

Ulysses

Tags: James Joyce


A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus

Tags: Ludwig Wittgenstein


There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.

WILLIAM JAMES

Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness", The Varieties of Religious Experience

Tags: William James


Truth is always new, therefore timeless. What was truth yesterday is not truth today, what Truth is truth today is not truth tomorrow: truth has no continuity. It is the mind which wants to make the experience which it calls truth continuous, and such a mind shall not know truth.

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI

"What was true yesterday is not true today", The New Indian Express, March 2, 2017

Tags: Jiddu Krishnamurti


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


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


When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.

LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES

Reflections and Maxims


The longest sword, the strongest lungs, the most voices, are false measures of Truth.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms


Truth and virtue are flowers that die not.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


I've always been suspicious of collective truths. I think an idea is true when it hasn't been put into words and that the moment it's put into words it becomes exaggerated. Because the moment it's put into words there's an abuse, an excess in the expression of the idea that makes it false.

EUGENE IONESCO

Conversations with Eugene Ionesco

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