“How can we do justice even when it concerns truth itself, since for me only one truth exists, my truth, even if it is a delusion, yes, my delusion; my delusion.”

— Imre Kertész , book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 10, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "How can we do justice even when it concerns truth itself, since for me only one truth exists, my truth, even if it is a…" by Imre Kertész?

Imre Kertész photo

Imre Kertész 61

Hungarian writer 1929–2016

Related quotes

“It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Pursuit of Truth" in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (1993)
Attributed from posthumous publications
Context: I cannot believe – and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable – that there can ever be any good excuse for refusing to face the evidence in favour of something unwelcome. It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

“Truth may sometimes hurt, but delusion harms.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

from Rewards of Passion, quoted on Wilfred FX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_%28U.S._TV_series%29, Season 3, Episode 6

“Why do you so earnestly seek the truth in distant places?
Look for delusion and truth in the bottom of your own hearts.”

Ryōkan (1758–1831) Japanese Buddhist monk

Zen Poetics of Ryokan (2006)

“Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.”

Ludwig Börne (1786–1837) German writer

Variant: Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.

“Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an œconomy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)

“Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“I never met another man I'd rather be. And even if that's a delusion, it's a lucky one.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

in Bukowski: Born Into This (2002)
Variant: I've never met another man I'd rather be.

“The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, Introduction to Nietzsche's The Antichrist

“The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2007

Related topics