quotations about truth
Generally speaking, "truth" is a statement about what is perceived as real. And the truth is that truth is always contested. Facts can always be challenged and interpreted differently. If shared by many in a society, truths turn into societal beliefs.
CORA PFAFFEROTT
"Is 'post-truth' just a convenient lie?", Chron, January 23, 2017
Truth, though hewn like the mangled form of Osiris into a thousand pieces, and scattered to the four winds, shall be gathered limb to limb, and moulded with every joint and member into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Truth is death to the portrait painter.
FRANCIS A. DURIVAGE
"The Career of an Artist"
Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
MARK TWAIN
Following the Equator
You know the truth, the brick-hard, irregular, slithery surface of truth.
PHILIP K. DICK
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
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
You present the facts and let the people decide whether they want to believe the rumours or go by the facts. Truth is always the best counter.
D.S. HOODA
"In Kashmir, rumours fly faster than truth", The Kashmir Monitor, April 24, 2017
Truth is on the march; nothing can stop it now.
EMILE ZOLA
manifesto, Le Figaro
Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those "truths" we once believed.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
"Truth Will Have No Other Gods Alongside It"
Truths that startled the generation in which they were first announced become in the next age the commonplaces of conversation; as the famous airs of operas which thrilled the first audiences come to be played on hand-organs in the streets.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
And the truth is cold, as a giant's knee
Will seem cold.
JOHN ASHBERY
"A Last World"
Only the dead know the truth.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
There are tides of justice surging to the unknown shores of right;
Stars of truth that seek a setting in the dark, untutored night.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Caelestis"
I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defence of it.
JOHN LOCKE
The Reasonableness of Christianity
There is no religion higher than the truth.
MARK FROST
The List of Seven
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
OSCAR WILDE
The Nightingale and the Rose
Discussion is impossible with someone who claims not to seek the truth, but already to possess it.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Above the Battle
I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to George E. Pickett, February 22, 1841
There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
PHILIP ROTH
The Human Stain