quotations about truth
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 sad truth is the truth is sad.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, The Hostile Hospital
God sends ten thousand truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing a while upon the roof and then fly away.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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
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
The practice of utter sincerity towards other men would avail to no good end, if they were incapable of practising it towards their own minds. In fact, truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Essay on Christianity"
I always tell the truth when I'm drunk. In vino vomitas.
GUY BELLAMY
The Man Who Won
That which is not formed of truth is of bad texture.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Dark should torch of Truth be never,
For it burns with love divine.
Light it should all people, nations,
In our hearts should be its shrine.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Truth's Torch"
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise.
EMILY DICKINSON
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
There is an inherent and absolute authority in all truth, which makes it, in the end, unconquerable and victorious. The truth is mighty, and will prevail. What is founded on error, has rottenness for its corner-stone; and although it may temporarily be upheld by foreign aid, yet, deserted by its supporters, it always finally tumbles to the ground.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
When we mean to touch the heart, we always speak the truth in some degree. It is our last resource; and if it were our first, we should have less to lament.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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
We grease the truth with rhyme.
NIK HOUSER
"A Beginner's Guide to Sandcastle Alchemy", Weird Tales, Summer 2011
Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
If you want to see the truth, you must be brave enough to look.
RUNE LAZULI
Each truth helps on the discovery of another.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Sometimes you hear a person speak the truth and you know that they are speaking the truth. But you also know that they have not heard themselves, do not know what they have said: do not know that they have revealed much more than they have said. This may be why the truth remains, on the whole, so rare.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
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
A man may be in as just possession of the truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Religio Medici