quotations about truth
No one wants it to be true. But the truth doesn't care what anyone wants.
GLEN DUNCAN
By Blood We Live
If you want to see the truth, you must be brave enough to look.
RUNE LAZULI
We have great power to see the truth when the truth is all we wish to see; but what is easier than to credit what we desire? and can a man deceive anyone so easily as himself?
JAMES VILA BLAKE
Essays
The human mind is a delusion generator, not a window to truth.
SCOTT ADAMS
God's Debris: A Thought Experiment
When the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be their yet.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
No Country for Old Men
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
An error is more useful than truth: truth is a thought suffering from arteriosclerosis.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Future of the Theater
Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in its excess.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The Present Crisis
We are too small, all but a few of us, to hold more than a little of the truth.
JOHN C. BAILEY
The Claims of French Poetry
If power does not listen to truth, power will reap its own destruction.
PAUL TYSON
"Adults in the Room, by Yanis Varoufakis", Open Democracy, May 11, 2017
One great disadvantage to the cause of truth is, its being so often in the hands of liars.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters and Reflections
The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Who dares to say that he alone has found the truth?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The New England Tragedies
Truth was truth, whether I darkened my eyes to it or not.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
Remarks on the Science of History
All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it.
WOODY ALLEN
Deconstructing Harry
Truth cannot contradict truth.
POPE LEO X
Papal bull condemning every proposition contrary to the truth of the enlightened Christian faith, Apostolici Regiminis, December 19, 1513
The Truth, with a capital T, is what ought to be. Not simply what was, or what is.
JENNIFER LEE CARRELL
Interred With Their Bones
Truth never hurts the teller.
ROBERT BROWNING
Fifine at the Fair
What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon