Truth Quotes

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
– Thomas Carlyle
Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.
– Miguel de Cervantes
I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.
– Charlie Chaplin
Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same - hardihood. Give them raw truth.
– John Jay Chapman
Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.
– Lord Chesterfield
Half a truth is better than no politics.
– G. K. Chesterton
In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.
– G. K. Chesterton
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
– Sir Winston Churchill
In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
The fear of being deceived is the vulgar version of the quest for Truth.
– Emile M. Cioran
Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around.
– Frank A. Clark
Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?
– Dick Clark
Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.
– Karl Von Clausewitz
If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth.
– John Cleese
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
– Jean Cocteau
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
– Jean Cocteau
In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress.
– Leonard Cohen
Everything will line up perfectly when knowing and living the truth becomes more important than looking good.
– Alan Cohen
Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.
– Charles Caleb Colton
Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
– Confucius
The object of the superior man is truth.
– Confucius
A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.
– Joseph Conrad
Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.
– Joseph Conrad
The sea - this truth must be confessed - has no generosity. No display of manly qualities - courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness - has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power.
– Joseph Conrad
Truth of a modest sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one with one's friends.
– Joseph Conrad
In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.
– Walter Cronkite
Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end.
– Sid Caesar
I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me.
– Camillo di Cavour
When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback.
– Bill Copeland
I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.
– Nicolaus Copernicus
So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.
– Nicolaus Copernicus
I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender.
– Rodney Dangerfield
The pursuit of truth will set you free; even if you never catch up with it.
– Clarence Darrow
There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.
– Bette Davis
Some people are desperately looking for scapegoats, they just don't want to see the truth!
– Jonathan Davis
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
– Rene Descartes
There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
– Charles Dickens
Tell the truth, but tell it slant.
– Emily Dickinson
Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.
– Emily Dickinson
Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.
– Denis Diderot
We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.
– Denis Diderot
Justice is truth in action.
– Benjamin Disraeli
Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.
– Benjamin Disraeli
What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.
– Benjamin Disraeli
When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.
– Benjamin Disraeli
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.
– Bob Dylan
The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.
– Alan Dershowitz
Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them.
– Umberto Eco
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
– Umberto Eco
Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.
– Umberto Eco
Happiness is spiritual, born of truth and love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.
– Mary Baker Eddy
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
– Albert Einstein
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
– Albert Einstein
In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.
– Albert Einstein
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
– Albert Einstein
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
– Albert Einstein
Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
– Desiderius Erasmus
There is no truth. There is only perception.
– Gustave Flaubert
Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
– Jean de La Fontaine
Half a truth is often a great lie.
– Benjamin Franklin
Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though in truth his dreaming must be not out of proportion to his waking.
– Margaret Fuller
Truth is a tendency.
– Richard Buckminster Fuller
There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.
– John Kenneth Galbraith
All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
– Mahatma Gandhi
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
– Mahatma Gandhi
God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
– Mahatma Gandhi
God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.
– Mahatma Gandhi
I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
– Mahatma Gandhi
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
– Mahatma Gandhi
The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
– Mahatma Gandhi
The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.
– James A. Garfield
Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
– Kahlil Gibran
Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.
– Kahlil Gibran
Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand.
– Kahlil Gibran
Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
– Kahlil Gibran
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
– Kahlil Gibran
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
– Kahlil Gibran
First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage, the real truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors, he is a moral coward.
– Al Gore
A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice; a good one supplies everything, gilds a No, sweetens a truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself.
– Baltasar Gracian
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
– Graham Greene
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
The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
– Graham Greene
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
– Galileo Galilei