quotations about truth
If you seek truth, you will not seek by every means to gain a victory; and if you have found truth, you will have the gain of not being defeated.
EPICTETUS
Fragments
He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion.
GIANNINA BRASCHI
Empire of Dreams
Human truth is always soiled with falsehood.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Truths, no matter how momentous or enduring, are nothing to the individual until he appreciates them, and feels their force, and acknowledges their sovereignty. He cannot bow to their majesty until he sees their power. All the blind then, and all the ignorant--that is, all the children--must be educated up to the point of perceiving and admitting the truth, and acting according to its mandates.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Truth is the backbone of character. Nothing is beautiful or strong or permanent without truth. All qualifications that go to make up noble manhood count for naught where there is not a persistent adherence to truthfulness. As the mirror reflects objects as they are, without alteration, so truth presents everything as it is.
HENRY F. KLETZING
"Truth"
Any given man sees only a tiny portion of the total truth, and very often, in fact almost ... perpetually, he deliberately deceives himself about that little precious fragment as well.
PHILIP K. DICK
A Scanner Darkly
You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right -- at least if you have any experience -- because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in.
RICHARD FEYNMAN
attributed, Sympathetic Vibrations
It is dangerous to follow truth too near, lest she should kick out our teeth.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
attributed, Day's Collacon
If we think we have found truth for ourselves, above all things, let us not impose it on one another. Let us lock upon it all the doors of consciousness. For however inspiring it may be to us, however ennobling, when once we try to impose it on another it becomes a poison.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Truth", Intimations
Truth comes to us from the past, as gold is washed down from the mountains of Sierra Nevada, in minute but precious particles, and intermixed with infinite alloy, the debris of the centuries.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Fall
Some truths may be proclaimed upon the housetop; others may be spoken by the fireside; still others must be whispered in the ear of a friend.
ROSSITER JOHNSON
"The Whispering Gallery"
Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Entrust Truth, whatsoever thou hast from the Truth, and thou shalt lose nothing; and thy decay shall bloom again, and all thy diseases be healed, and thy mortal parts be reformed and renewed, and bound around thee.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
Truth is truth, though from an enemy, and spoken in malice.
GEORGE LILLO
George Barnwell; or, the London Merchant
Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.
WILL ROGERS
The Illiterate Digest
He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Truth lies in a small compass, and if a well has been assigned her, for a habitation, it is as appropriate from its narrowness, as its depth.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon