Quotes about the truth (8068 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“There are two sides to every story and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.”

Paul J. Alessi (1968) Actor / Producer

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/10696117836382928/

“In the end, finding the Truth will always be tiring in a world full of appearances.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Klairet Levy, R. Interview to José Baroja. http://letras.mysite.com/jbar050923.html

Appearance , World

“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Heartbreaking , Inspirational , love , Life

“Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don't speak bird.”

Kurt Cobain book Journals

Journals (2002)
Context: Birds... scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth. They know the truth. Screaming bloody murder all over the world in our ears, but sadly we don't speak bird. [p. 224]

Bird , Rage

“Actions can easily reveal the truth about the person, but also remember not to ignore the words.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Personality

“If you are emotionally attached to your tribe, religion or political leaning to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education and exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability.”

Chuba Okadigbo (1941–2003) Nigerian politician

Source: Fani-Kayode urges Buhari to take Okadigbo’s advice, Ifreke Inyang, 23 October 2017, Daily Post, Nigeria, 18 April 2018 http://dailypost.ng/2017/10/23/fani-kayode-urges-buhari-take-okadigbos-advice/,

Education , Religion , Justice

“But what's real? You can't find the truth, you just pick the lie you like the best.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Lie

“The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. My Mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

God

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything passes.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook: Part Two
Source: No Longer Human

Hell , Happiness

“I understand that you are claiming it is almost impossible to forgive, but only easier to forget. The truth is that, you can only forgive that which you have forced your mind to forget. We must forget first, then forgiveness will come by itself.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Forgiveness , Understanding , Forgetting

“If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing. If she's worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you're not worthy…. Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Variant: If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing. If she's worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you're not worthy. ... Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
Source: Guitar Chord Songbook - Bob Marley

Suffering , Hurt

“Success equals achievement and achievements equal to happiness. That's the universal truth.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Success , Happiness , Universe

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

"The Leaning Tower", lecture delivered to the Workers' Educational Association, Brighton (May 1940)
The Moment and Other Essays (1948)

People

“I don't think there is any truth. There are only points of view.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Thinking

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

George Orwell book Politics and the English Language

"Politics and the English Language" (1946)
Context: Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Appearance

“Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

Statement to the press (23 November 1991), the day before his death, as quoted at The Biography Channel http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/338:294/1/Freddie_Mercury.htm.

World , Disease , Hope , Understanding

“The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4

Fear , Knowledge

“The tongue may hide the truth but the eyes—never!”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Book One in 'Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream', B/O
Variant: The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never!
Source: The Master and Margarita (1967)
Context: The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never! You're asked an unexpected question, you don't even flinch, it takes just a second to get yourself under control, you know just what you have to say to hide the truth, and you speak very convincingly, and nothing in your face twitches to give you away. But the truth, alas, has been disturbed by the question, and it rises up from the depths of your soul to flicker in your eyes and all is lost.

“Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate.
Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate.
Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face.
Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced.
Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares.
Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops,
knowing that my sanity content when I'm droped.
But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new,
build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth.
Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride.
I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Hate , Fate , Children , Dreams

“That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw.”

Hesiod Greek poet

Wisdom

“I think that truth is the highest value, although it has to be embedded in love. What I mean by that is that truth should serve the highest good imaginable. For me, that is what is best for each individual, in the manner that is simultaneously best for the family, and the state, and nature itself. But you can only want that good if you love Being.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Love , Family , Imagination , Nature

“The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

"The Evolution of Chastity" (1934), as translated by René Hague in Toward the Future (1975)
Context: The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe. Beyond the vibrations with which we are familiar, the rainbow-like range of its colours is still in full growth. But, for all the fascination that the lower shades have for us, it is only towards the "ultra" that the creation of light advances. It is in these invisible and, we might almost say, immaterial zones that we can look for true initiation into unity. The depths we attribute to matter are no more than the reflection of the peaks of spirit.

Love , Universe

“I feel safe in the midst of my enemies, for the truth is all powerful and will prevail.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

Feeling

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)

People , Help

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

People

“No human being will ever know the truth, for even if they happened to say it by chance, they would not know they had done so.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Chance

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Deep , Friendship , Relationship , Cute

“The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.”

Hannah Arendt book The Life of the Mind

Source: The Life of the Mind (1978), "Thinking".

People , Sadness , Evil

“Life is suffering, and suffering can make you resentful, murderous, and then genocidal, if you take it far enough. So you need an antidote to suffering. And maybe you think that you can build walls of luxury around yourself, and that that will protect you from the suffering. Good luck with that. That isn't going to work. Maybe you think that you could build a delusion and live inside that. Well, that's going to fall apart. What is there, then, that's going to help you fight against suffering? That's easy: It's the Truth. The Truth is the antidote to suffering. The reason for that is because the Truth puts reality behind you, so that you can face the reality that's coming straight at you without becoming weak and degenerating and becoming resentful and wishing for the destruction of Being, because that's the final Hell. The final Hell is your soul wishing for the destruction of everything, because it's too painful, and you're too bitter. And that happens to people all the time.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life , Pain , People , Soul

“They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow (Schlaukopf) of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to do with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Talking to Gyula Andrássy in Salzburg on 18 September 1877. As quoted in Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question. A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics (1935) by Robert William Seton-Watson, p. 224 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=5CPVAAAAMAAJ&q=fox; "Schlaukopf" is translated elsewhere as "clever dick" or "smart aleck."

With deal (instead of do) with a pirate, in Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy's influence on Habsburg foreign policy during the Franco-German War of 1870-1871 (1979) by János Decsy, p. 21 http://books.google.de/books?id=JtUhAAAAMAAJ&q=111

„Man behandelt mich wie einen Fuchs, wie einen Schlaukopf erster Klasse. Die Wahrheit aber ist, qu'avec un gentleman je suis toujours gentleman et demi, et que quand j'ai affaire à un corsaire, je tâche d'etre corsaire et demi"
:Eduard von Wertheimer: Graf Julius Andrássy. Sein Leben und seine Zeit. Vol. III. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1914 pp. 42-43 http://books.google.de/books?id=2skhAAAAMAAJ&q=demi
1870s

“Give me your body and let me love you like I do
Come a little closer and let me do those things to you
This feeling will last forever, baby, that's the truth
Let me be your man so I can love you”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

Let Me for his partner on young people not knowing what to come in the future if it is too faraway into the future
Song lyrics

Love , Feeling , Baby

“The truth is not meant to be balanced or filtered out. You are only allowed to deliver it the way it is.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Way

“As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speeches

Cheating , Justice

“Tell the truth. If you tell the truth all the time you don't have to worry three months down the line about what you said three months earlier. Truth is always the truth. You won't have to complicate your life by trying to cover up.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Life , Time

“The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

World , Food , Nature , Water

“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

"Packard Goose"
"Joe's Garage Acts II & III" (1979)
Variant: Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best.

Love , Wisdom , Beauty , Music

“To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

“Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Knowledge

“Marilyn Monroe wasn't even her real name, Charles Manson isn't his real name, and now, I'm taking that to be my real name. But what's real? You can't find the truth, you just pick the lie you like the best.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Lie

“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”

Adolf Hitler book Hitler's Letters and Notes

Source: Hitler's Letters and Notes

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 330

World , Boy , Appearance , Sea

“Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Silence

“Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air, new lights and new truths to enter.”

Amit Ray (1960) Indian author

Walking the Path of Compassion (2015)

Light

“One who forsakes truth earns eternal damnation.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“When truth was revealed to me I never doubted it.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“Like the old Indian proverb says, do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his moccasins.
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in which most is not true. I cry very very often because it hurts and I worry about the children, all my children all over the world, I live for them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he could prove, history could not be written.
Animals strike not from malice but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children.
But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now. MJ.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Handwritten note published in People (12 October 1987)

Pain , Children , People , World

“When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Vol. VI, p 5, "First Talk in Rajahmundry (20 November 1949) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=335&chid=4655&w=%22You+cannot+find+truth+through+anybody+else%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 491120
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: You cannot find truth through anybody else. How can you? Surely, truth is not something static; it has no fixed abode; it is not an end, a goal. On the contrary, it is living, dynamic, alert, alive. How can it be an end? If truth is a fixed point, it is no longer truth; it is then a mere opinion. Sir, truth is the unknown, and a mind that is seeking truth will never find it. For mind is made up of the known; it is the result of the past, the outcome of time — which you can observe for yourself. Mind is the instrument of the known; hence it cannot find the unknown; it can only move from the known to the known. When the mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that "truth" is self-projected, for then the mind is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than the previous one. When the mind seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth. After all, an ideal is self-projected; it is fictitious, unreal. What is real is what is, not the opposite. But a mind that is seeking reality, seeking God, is seeking the known. When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth. The moment you think of the unknown, it is merely the self-projected known. So, God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be sought; it comes to you. You can go after only what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself. Truth is in every leaf, every tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you to truth; and if anyone leads you, it can only be to the known.

God , Thinking

“Self-realization is realizing the truth that was already there when you were still unaware of it. Self-help means regaining your full freedom and living according to your desires.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Freedom , Help

“I had a crush on Percy," Nico spat. "That's the truth. That's the big secret.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Secret

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

People , Literature , Study

“There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Life

“We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived."”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Life , Problem

“The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Women

“The phenomenological world is not the bringing to explicit expression of a pre-existing being, but the laying down of being. Philosophy is not the reflection of a pre-existing truth, but, like art, the act of bringing truth into being.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

World , Art

“Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

On patent controversies regarding the invention of Radio and other things, as quoted in "A Visit to Nikola Tesla" by Dragislav L. Petković in Politika (April 1927); as quoted in Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999) by Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn, p. 73 ISBN 0760710058 </small> ; also in Tesla: Man Out of Time (2001) by Margaret Cheney, p. 230 <small> ISBN 0743215362

Future

“The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can't have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I'd rather not be in a cage. I'd rather be dead. And it's real simple. And I think it's not that uncommon.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

Love , Feeling , Thinking , Animals

“One who does not use his intelligence will not succeed and one who does not use his knowledge will have no intellect. One who understands will attain nobility and excellence, and one who is tolerant will triumph. Knowledge is a shield (against evil), truth begets honour and ignorance disgrace, understanding is distinction, generosity is salvation and good manners command love and respect.”

Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) Muslim religious person

Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī - The Book of Intellect and Ignorance.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

Love , Intelligence , Understanding , Knowledge

“Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Truth
Essays (1625)

World

“The true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions we uncover the laws of truth.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,

Law

“Lies run sprints but the truth runs marathons.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Press statement (November 2003); quoted in "Michael Jackson Calls Child Molestation Charges 'Lies'" (8 December 2003) Jet
Variant: Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons.

“Earn wealth through honest and truthful work.”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

Basavanna's Preachings

Wealth

“When the remedy you have offered only increases the disease, then leave him who will not be cured, and tell your story to someone who seeks the truth.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Rumi Daylight (1990)

Disease

“People always told me, 'Be careful what you do,
Don't go around breaking young girls' hearts,'
And momma always told me, 'Be careful who you love,
Be careful what you do, 'cause a lie becomes the truth.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Thriller (1982)

Love , People , Lie , Girl

“This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

As quoted in Head and Heart : A Personal Exploration of Science and the Sacred (2002) by Victor Mansfield
Context: He says, "There’s nothing left of me.
I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight." This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!The ruby and the sunrise are one. Be courageous and discipline yourself.
Completely become hearing and ear, and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.

God

“Words are life. Words are light. Words are power. Words are energy. Words are truth. Words can enliven and words can also kill. Words can give hope, or plunge us into despair. People use words to build peace, and use words to make war. Words can create walls between cultures, religions, and nations. And words can also build bridges. The existence of an individual, a family, a community, a country, and our planet is being led to good or to evil through the power of the words we speak. The words we speak are responsible for everything that happens in this world. We, therefore, must be responsible for the words we speak. On behalf of future generations, I hope that each of us will do all we can to speak only bright, light-filled words, so that one day, our descendants will be born into a world filled with light. There is no time to lose. Starting at this very moment, I hope all of us will take a close look at the words we have been using and make constant efforts to fill them with brightness.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Despair , Family , Peace , Religion

“The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

This has been attributed to Orwell on the internet, but the earliest source citing him as author appears to be a post from Jsnip4 on the RealistNews.net forum (15 February 2011) http://www.realistnews.net/Thread-realist-news-was-the-capital-gains-tax-just-removed-regarding-bullion. Prior to this, the statement occurred, without attribution to Orwell, in an opinion piece by columnist Selwyn Duke http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/duke/090506, "Stopping Truth At The Border: Banning Michael Savage From Britain" (6 May 2009) https://web.archive.org/web/20150701002957/http://www.conservativecrusader.com/articles/stopping-truth-at-the-border-banning-michael-savage-from-britain.
Misattributed

Hate

“I raise my glass to the Awful Truth,
Which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth,
Except to say it isn't worth a dime,
And the whole damn place goes crazy twice,
And it's once for the Devil and once for Christ”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Youth , Christ

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Another handwriten message on Elvis' King James -Bible http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2188891/Elvis-bible-containing-handwritten-notes-star-expected-fetch-thousands-auction.html
Variant: Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away.

Time , Sun

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Source: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers

Light

“What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, For all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Goodbye , Love , Parting

“Last time I saw you, I said that it hurt too much to love you. But I was wrong about that. The truth is it hurts too much not to love you”

Kristin Cast (1986) American writer

For Him , For Boyfriend , Love , Time

“The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: On Being Blonde (2007), p. 52
Context: The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them and fooling them.

People , Fools

“Sometimes, when you don't ask questions, it's not because you are afraid that someone will lie to your face. It's because you're afraid they'll tell you the truth.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Lie , Question

“Life is difficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage to that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished, our frail barks founder in darkness, one that needs, above all, courage, truth, and the power to endure.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Life , Hope , Courage

“The Truth An Offense But Not A Sin”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“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.

“Always speak the truth, think before you speak, and write it down afterwards.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Thinking

“A lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

[The Autumn of the Patriarch, 2006 [1976], HarperCollins, 978-0-06-088286-0, 254] translated from El Ontoño del Patriarica (1975) by Gregory Rabassa

Love , Lie

“If you want the truth,
I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound,
the real sound,
which is inside you.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Secret

“And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Love

“In truth, there was only one christian and he died on the cross.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Good is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it, truth never breaks through except through the sacrifice of those who spread it.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

“The truth is, honey, I've enjoyed my life. I've had a hell of a good time.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

Life , Hell , Time

“Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

People , Change

“Comfort” is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

De Profundis (1897)

People , Passion

“I guess I'm pretty much of a lone wolf. I don't say I don't like people at all but, to tell you the truth I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds.”

Béla Lugosi (1882–1956) Hungarian actor

People , Wolf , Chance , Heart

“The dirty truth is that the rich are the great cause of poverty.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Creating The Poor, p. 21
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

“I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Hallelujah"
Various Positions (1984)

Fools , Feeling

“Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

"A Plea For Intolerance" (1931)

Evil , Personality , Patience , Anger

“What scientific truth tells you is: what things are. Genuine religious truth tells you: how you should act. These are not the same.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

“Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth and justice! I did not come on this voyage for gain, honor or wealth, that is certain; for then the hope of all such things was dead. I came to Your Highnesses with honest purpose and sincere zeal; and I do not lie. I humbly beseech You Highnesses that, if it please God to remove me hence, you will help me to go to Rome and on other pilgrimages.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

Letter to the Sovereigns (1503)

God , Lie , Justice , Hope

“There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

As quoted in The Commodity Trader's Almanac 2007 (2006) by Scott W. Barrie and Jeffrey A. Hirsch, p. 44

Error

“What is at first small is often extremely large in the end. And so it happens that whoever deviates only a little from truth in the beginning is led farther and farther afield in the sequel, and to errors which are a thousand times as large.”

Franz Brentano (1838–1917) Austrian philosopher

Was klein ist im Beginn wird oft am Ende überaus groß sein. Und so geschieht es, das wer im Anfange auch nur um ein Weniges von der Wahrheit abweicht, im Verlauf immer weiter und weiter und zu tausendmal größern Irrthümer fortgeführt wird.
On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862)

Error , Time

“[Nehru's] animus against Hinduism was derived from his love for Communism. He knew next to nothing about Buddhism; the only reason be hailed it as well as its hero, Ashoka, was that in his perception Buddhism was a 'revolt' against 'reactionary' Brahminism. Had he known the truth about Buddhism, he would have dropped it like a hot potato. The same psychology made him fall for Islam. Otherwise he was equally ignorant of, and equally indifferent to all religions. The Secularism which he espoused was not borrowed from the modem West. For him, it was only a smokescreen for Hindu-baiting. The fashion was picked up fast by a servile intelligentsia and became a national cult.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Freedom of expression - Secular Theocracy Versus Liberal Democracy (1998)

Love , Religion , Communication , Fashion