quotations about truth
Science and mathematics
Run parallel to reality, they symbolize it, they squint at it,
They never touch it: consider what an explosion
Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky the world
If any mind for a moment touch truth.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"The Silent Shepherds"
We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours.
ARNOLD BENNETT
The Journal of Arnold Bennett
The greatest friend of Truth is time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
All things to all men only fools will tell,
Truth profits none but those that use it well.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
The Wise Men of Greece: In a Series of Dramatic Dialogues
No great truth bursts upon man without having its hemisphere of darkness and sorrow.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Truth is a gem which will only reflect the rays that come direct from heaven.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
There is no doubt that truth is to falsehood as light is to darkness; and so excellent a thing is truth that even when it touches humble and lowly matters, it still incomparably exceeds the uncertainty and falsehood in which great and elevated discourses are clothed; because even if falsehood be the fifth element of our minds, notwithstanding this, truth is the supreme nourishment of the higher intellects.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Occasions
In a free society, there comes a time when the truth -- however hard it may be to hear, however impolitic it may seem to say -- must be told.
AL GORE
fundraising letter, May 2006
If you can't tell the truth to the people you care about the most, eventually you stop being able to tell the truth to yourself.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Ashes
There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ
La monadologie
You have noticed that truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping.
NICHOLAS BLACK ELK
Black Elk Speaks
Truth is always like oil in water ... No matter how much of water you add ... it always floats on top.
AHMED MUSA
"Who are you to judge the life I live? Leicester City's Musa slams critics", The 42, May 2, 2017
Truth smells like Chinese food and sweat.
NICHOLSON BAKER
The Anthologist
An honest man speaks truth, though it may give offense; a vain man, in order that it may.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Not everything that's true needs to be said.
CASSANDRA CLARE
City of Bones
If a man lived in a desert for six months without food, drink or companionship he would be reasonably free from prejudice and would be in a condition to enunciate great truths. But even then his vision of reality would have been warped by so much sand and so many sunsets. Even if he survived and brought us his Truth with all the gravity and long night-gown of a Hindu faker, as soon as any one listened to him his message would no longer be Truth. The complexion of his audience, the very shape of their noses, would subtly undermine his magnificent aloofness.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
"Truth", Mince Pie
No two things can be so contradictory, so much at variance as truth and falsehood; and yet none are so mixed and united.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections
The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
"Notebook H", Aphorisms