“Yet such is the order of nature. While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evildoing.”

“In your calm bosom have made their dwelling a dignity that charms and virtue gay yet weighty. Not for you lazy repose or unjust power or vaulting ambition, but a middle way leading through the Good and the Pleasant. Of stainless faith and a stranger to passion, private while ordering your life for all to see, a despiser too of gold yet none better at displaying your wealth to advantage and letting the light in upon your riches.”
Tu cujus placido posuere in pectore sedem blandus honos hilarisque tamen cum pondere virtus, cui nec pigra quies nec iniqua potentia nec spes improba, sed medius per honesta et dulcia limes, incorrupte fidem nullosque experte tumultus et secrete, palam quod digeris ordine vitam, idem auri facilis contemptor et optimus idem comere divitias opibusque immittere lucem.

Statius Silvae

“Harvard's motto is "Veritas." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

“I had always claimed to welcome the truth; yet now, in common with most of us, I was resentful of the truth because it called upon me to take an unwelcome course of action.”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

“Great chefs always have to wait for orders. They adapt to all circumstances.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Some pious men may find this truth unorthodox and bitter:
But Nature, Chance, and Time ensure survival of the fitter!”

Robert Charles Wilson book Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

“Children come running to the truth
But you've got to peel the skin to get the fruit
And while one's living high another's grieving
But what's sweet by morning is bitter by the evening
Oh - What's sweet by morning is bitter by the evening.”

Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician

“I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

“Behind one truth there is always yet another.”

Lloyd Alexander book The Iron Ring

“Books, like lives, are always unfinished even when they end, for to write is to struggle with contingency, to impose a certain false order upon the endless, and endlessly frustrating, nature of thought.”

Mark Kingwell (1963) Canadian philosopher