Authors matching 'truth':

Truth Quotes


A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.
– Alfred Adler

Truth exists; only lies are invented.
– Georges Braque

There is little more powerful than when truth joins action.
– Bryant H. McGill

A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.
– Aesop

Falsehood is cowardice, the truth courage.
– Hosea Ballou

When in doubt, tell the truth.
– Mark Twain

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.
– Edward Abbey

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.
– Friedrich Nietzsche

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
– Flannery O'Connor

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
– Oscar Wilde

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.
– George Orwell

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
– Andre Gide

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
– Carl Jung
Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.
– Ansel Adams
Too much truth is uncouth.
– Franklin P. Adams
A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
– Joseph Addison
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
– Joseph Addison
The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth.
– Alfred Adler
Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.
– Aesop
Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.
– Louisa May Alcott
Let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won.
– Louisa May Alcott
I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.
– Muhammad Ali
My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.
– Muhammad Ali
An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.
– Henri Frederic Amiel
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
– Henri Frederic Amiel
Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.
– Henri Frederic Amiel
For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.
– Maya Angelou
There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.
– Maya Angelou
The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash.
– Louis Aragon
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
– Hannah Arendt
The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.
– Hannah Arendt
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
– Aristotle
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
– Aristotle
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
It is by doubting that we come to investigate, and by investigating that we recognize the truth.
– Peter Abelard
Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true.
– Richard Bach
There is no original truth, only original error.
– Gaston Bachelard
Science is but an image of the truth.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
– Sir Francis Bacon
What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.
– Sir Francis Bacon
You never find yourself until you face the truth.
– Pearl Bailey
Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
– James A. Baldwin
Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.
– George Bancroft
But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken.
– Pedro Calderon de la Barca
The simple truth is that balding African-American men look cool when they shave their heads, whereas balding white men look like giant thumbs.
– Dave Barry
A judgment about life has no meaning except the truth of the one who speaks last, and the mind is at ease only at the moment when everyone is shouting at once and no one can hear a thing.
– Georges Bataille
Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself.
– Simone de Beauvoir
It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.
– Henry Ward Beecher
For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.
– Bo Bennett
The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.
– Jeremy Bentham
The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.
– William Bernbach
Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.
– Ambrose Bierce
Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
– Ambrose Bierce
As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
– Josh Billings
There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying.
– Josh Billings
When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.
– Otto von Bismarck
A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.
– William Blake
When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.
– William Blake
There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.
– Niels Bohr
Argument is meant to reveal the truth, not to create it.
– Edward de Bono
The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.
– Jorge Luis Borges
Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.
– Pearl S. Buck
The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.
– Pearl S. Buck
In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.
– Buddha
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
– Buddha
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
– Buddha
Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
– Edward Bulwer-Lytton
One of the sublimest things in the world is plain truth.
– Edward Bulwer-Lytton
There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.
– Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Truth makes on the ocean of nature no one track of light; every eye, looking on, finds its own.
– Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.
– John Burroughs
All truth is not to be told at all times.
– Samuel Butler
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
– Samuel Butler
For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
– Samuel Butler
Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
– Samuel Butler
The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
– Samuel Butler
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
– Samuel Butler
Adversity is the first path to truth.
– Lord Byron
But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
– Lord Byron
Opinions are made to be changed -or how is truth to be got at?
– Lord Byron
Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.
– Lord Byron
Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.
– Roger Bacon
Evil is the interruption of a truth by the pressure of particular or individual interests.
– Alain Badiou
Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.
– Philip James Bailey
It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.
– Arthur James Balfour
It does not require great learning to be a Christian and be convinced of the truth of the Bible. It requires only an honest heart and a willingness to obey God.
– Albert Barnes
Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.
– Robert Brault
It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.
– Giordano Bruno
Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind.
– Giordano Bruno
A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.
– John Calvin
How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.
– Albert Camus
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
– Albert Camus
Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
– Albert Camus
I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.
– George Canning