quotations about truth
Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"University Education", Fact and Fiction
The demands of Truth are severe; she has no sympathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood, which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive the radical and chasmal differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"The Poetic Principle"
For simple are the words of truth.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Hoplon Krisis
Truth is literally that which is without secrecy, what discloses itself without a veil.
R. D. LAING
attributed, R. D. Laing: The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy
If the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer.
GEORGE ELIOT
Felix Holt
No man rides so high and in such good company as the man that allies himself to a truth.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
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
We shall find some things that are true, and some that are new, but very few things that are both true and new.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
No matter how much we ask after the truth, self-awareness is often unpleasant. We do not feel kindly toward the Truthsayer.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured, but, like the sun, only for a time.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth", Essays
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"A Liberal Decalogue", New York Times Magazine, December 16, 1951
Truth never was indebted to a lie.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Young India, January 8, 1925
Truth is the edict of God.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
There are truths so prosaic, so dense, so dull, that one can hardly state them without suggesting the idea of something subtler or more interesting beyond.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, June 9, 1880
TRUTH, such as it appears to us, can only be relative, because we ourselves, being relative creatures, have only a relative perception and judgment. We appreciate that which is true to ourselves, not that which is universally true. And truth may well assume an aspect to one different from that it assumes to another.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity