quotations about truth
Truth is not what makes people feel good. Unfortunately, bad news can be true.
CHAMBERLAIN C. OGUNEDO
"And the truth shall set you free: What is truth?", The Guardian, November 27, 2016
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
GRAHAM GREENE
Travels with My Aunt
The truth is always the same ... and the wants of the human heart are not widely different.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
There is no room for absolute truth upon any subject whatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself. But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can of them.
HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
Lucifer
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
No great truth bursts upon man without having its hemisphere of darkness and sorrow.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
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 is a gem which will only reflect the rays that come direct from heaven.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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
We're not given the chance to choose absolute truth. Truth's always two-faced. The only thing we have is the right to reject the lie we find most repugnant.
SERGEI LUKYANENKO
Night Watch
Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either.
AESOP
Fables
I would then like to know how it comes about that when each piece of a story is true, the whole story turns out to be false?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
Personally, I don't give a rap for documents; for the truth in my eyes is not in them but in the mind.
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
It Is So! (If You Think So)
The only way to the truth is through blasphemy.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
Wise Blood
The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you are the Truth. If you look for it elsewhere, you will be deceived every time.
ECKHART TOLLE
A New Earth
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
There is often more truth in the censure of enemies than in the flattery of friends.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
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
And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express.
WILHELM REICH
Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939