“So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.”

—  Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

Variant translation: "...the search for truth strains the patience of most people, who would rather believe the first things that come to hand." Translation by Paul Woodruff.
Book I, 1.20-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 17, 2026. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." by Thucydides?
Thucydides photo
Thucydides76
Greek historian and Athenian general

Related quotes

John Ruskin photo

“There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.”

John Ruskin book Modern Painters

Volume III, part IV, chapter VII (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

As quoted in A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity (2007) by John Clippinger, p. 130
Compare: "The distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth." – De Officiis, Book I, 13
Disputed

Jen Wang photo

“I come up with a concept and might doodle a little bit to get some ideas flowing, but I mostly write and take notes. I write an outline. In a way, I feel like I can make the art fit the story that needs to be told, so I start with the story first.”

Jen Wang (1984) American comics artist

On her creation process in “Q & A with Jen Wang” https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/81155-q-a-with-jen-wang.html in Publishers Weekly (2019 Sep 12)

“Truth! stark naked truth, is the word, and I will not so much as take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze-wrapper on it.”

John Cleland book Fanny Hill

Page 39
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“We accept reality so readily - perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Richard Branson photo

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

“So often the pain of our life is no more than a reminder to take our hand off the stove.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Carousel

“A difficulty in seeking Truth is the notion that certain men are ordained of heaven to seek Truth for all mankind and that we are to accept their acquisitions in the place of seeking for ourselves. We can never attain Truth by proxy. By divine ordination every man is an original investigator of Truth. He denies his own reason who hands over his religious views and opinions to any priest or religious teacher… We are to accept nothing on the opinions of others. What another man has thought and believed, what a Church Council or synod has formulated is nothing to me, only that it may be a reason for personal investigation ending in acceptance or rejection as I may find it in harmony with reason and well established truth.”

Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist

Sermon (1899)

“The raconteur knows too well that, if he investigates the truth of the matter, he is only too likely to lose his good story.”

Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979) British historian

The Origins Of History (1981)

Anthony de Mello photo

“When we don't accept or follow, but question, investigate, penetrate, there is an insight out of which comes creativity, joy.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

The Way to Love (1995)
Context: It is the desire for "the more" that prevents clear thinking, whereas if we are discontent, not because we want something, but without knowing what we want; if we are dissatisfied with our jobs, with making money, with seeking position and power, with tradition, with what we have and with what we might have; if we are dissatisfied, not with anything in particular but with everything, then I think we shall find that our discontent brings clarity. When we don't accept or follow, but question, investigate, penetrate, there is an insight out of which comes creativity, joy.

Related topics