
“It is better to will the good than to know the truth.”
As quoted in The Renaissance : Essays in Interpretation (1982) by André Chastel , p 107
Copiare il vero può essere una buona cosa, ma inventare il vero è meglio, molto meglio.
Letter to Clara Maffei, October 20, 1876, cited from James P. Cassaro (ed.) Music, Libraries and the Academy (Middleton, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2007) p. 218; translation from the same source.
Copiare il vero può essere una buona cosa, ma inventare il vero è meglio, molto meglio.
Source: Da una lettera a Clara Maffei, 20 ottobre 1876; citato in Franz Werfel, Verdi. L'uomo nelle sue lettere, Lit Edizioni, 2014, p. 247 https://books.google.it/books?id=8hMwBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT247. ISBN 8868267217
“It is better to will the good than to know the truth.”
As quoted in The Renaissance : Essays in Interpretation (1982) by André Chastel , p 107
“There are worse things than a lie and there are better things than the truth!”
Source: Finnikin of the Rock
“Which is better, truth that is a lie or the lie that is truth?”
Source: The Judges
Connections (1979), 1 - The Trigger Effect
Context: The Egyptians built an empire and ran it with a handful of technology... the wheel, irrigation canals, the loom, the calendar, pen & ink, some cutting tools, some simple metallurgy, and the plough, the invention that triggered it all off. And yet look how complex and sophisticated their civilisation was. And how soon it happened, after that first man-made harvest. The Egyptian plough and those of the few other civilisations sprang up around the world at the same time... Gave us control over nature... And at the same time, tied us for good, to the things that we invent so that tomorrow will be better than today. The Egyptians knew that. That's why they had gods. To make sure that their systems didn't fail.
Source: More Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol 2
“The truth doesn’t hurt. Whatever it is, it doesn’t hurt. It’s better to know the truth.”
"Inside the Actors Studio," 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBBtYcK9Jb8
“The real truths are those that can be invented.”
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)