quotations about truth
I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary."
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
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
Truth and virtue are flowers that die not.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Ideas and Opinions: Based on Mein Weltbild
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
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
Serious misfortunes, originating in misrepresentation, frequently flow and spread before they can be dissipated by truth.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to John Jay, May 8, 1796
Condemn not truth for error's deeds.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"Flowers and Weeds"
Truth, to my mind, beats fiction for dramatic interest.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
To speak the truth is easy and pleasant.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
The Master and Margarita
Every dogma embodies some shade of truth to give it seeming currency.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Truth is within ourselves.
ROBERT BROWNING
Paracelsus
The longest sword, the strongest lungs, the most voices, are false measures of Truth.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Education and time may improve and augment the uses of truth, but cannot alter the structure, which is ever the same--as proceeding from the Eternal.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Like the gush of the morning light, truth must go forward.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Truth and eggs are useful only while they are fresh.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Some that will hold a creed unto martyrdom will not hold the truth against a sneering laugh.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The heart is an artist that paints over what profoundly disturbs us, leaving on the canvas a less dark, less sharp version of the truth.
DEAN KOONTZ
Forever Odd
Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.
JOHN MILTON
Areopagitica
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
letter to Elizabeth Pelham, January 4, 1939