“The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it.”
Variant: The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them (pg. 52).
Source: Anthem
Madison's notes (11 July 1787) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_711.asp<!-- Reports of Debates in the Federal Convention (11 July 1787), in The Papers of James Madison (1842), Vol. II, p. 1073 -->
Variants:
1780s, The Debates in the Federal Convention (1787)
Context: Two objections had been raised against leaving the adjustment of the representation, from time to time, to the discretion of the Legislature. The first was, they would be unwilling to revise it at all. The second, that, by referring to wealth, they would be bound by a rule which, if willing, they would be unable to execute. The first objection distrusts their fidelity. But if their duty, their honor, and their oaths, will not bind them, let us not put into their hands our liberty, and all our other great interests; let us have no government at all. In the second place, if these ties will bind them we need not distrust the practicability of the rule. It was followed in part by the Committee in the apportionment of Representatives yesterday reported to the House. The best course that could be taken would be to leave the interests of the people to the representatives of the people.
Mr. Madison was not a little surprised to hear this implicit confidence urged by a member who, on all occasions, had inculcated so strongly the political depravity of men, and the necessity of checking one vice and interest by opposing to them another vice and interest. If the representatives of the people would be bound by the ties he had mentioned, what need was there of a Senate? What of a revisionary power? But his reasoning was not only inconsistent with his former reasoning, but with itself. At the same time that he recommended this implicit confidence to the Southern States in the Northern majority, he was still more zealous in exhorting all to a jealousy of a western majority. To reconcile the gentleman with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by the points of the compass. The truth was, that all men having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree. The case of Pennsylvania had been mentioned, where it was admitted that those who were possessed of the power in the original settlement never admitted the new settlements to a due share of it. England was a still more striking example.
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 142
Variant: I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth--then shut up.
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land
“Truth is naturally universal… and shines into many different windows, though many are clouded.”
Source: Green Darkness
Source: Men Explain Things to Me
“The truth will not necessarily set you free, but truthfulness will.”
Source: A Brief History of Everything
Source: The King of Attolia
“Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.”
Idler Magazine, Volume 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=vMYaAAAAYAAJ&q=exceptionally+good+liar#search_anchor|The
“But no. There is a difference between the truth and what we wish were true.”
Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things
“Once you know the truth, it's always obvious”
Source: Faking It
“Everyone has the right to tell the truth about her own life.”
Source: The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
“Listen to the Chair Leg of Truth! It does not lie!”
Source: Transmetropolitan, Vol. 9: The Cure
Source: Heart of Darkness
Variant: Hajime," she began, "the sad truth is that some things can't go backwards. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back to the way they were. If one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
“The pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in searching for it.”
Source: Anna Karenina
The Grass Is Singing, ch. 2 (1950)
Variant: Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.
Source: Tempt Me at Twilight
Source: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception
“Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.”
“Do the truth quietly without display.”
Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning https://books.google.com/books?id=Gxv208Eit_4C&pg=PT322 (1998), p. 22
1990s
“In all the illusions, you're the only truth that I need”
Source: Honest Illusions
“You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth”
“The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.”
Source: God Emperor of Dune
Source: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
“Those who know the TRUTH are not equal to those who love it.”
Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers
“But the truth doesn't need to be known, or believed, to be true.”
Source: Deadline
Variant: When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.
Source: The Kite Runner (2003)
Context: There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.
“Truth by definition excludes.”
2000s
Source: [Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message, 2000, 2002, 9780849943270, 6]
“Scepticism is the first step towards truth.”
As quoted in The Anchor Book of French Quotations with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Gutermam
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)
Variant: A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
Variant: The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
Source: Pensées philosophiques
Source: Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Abhorsen (2003), p. 343.
Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
“People ask all the time how I'm doing, but the truth is, they don't really want to know.”
Source: Handle with Care
“Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth.”
Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Source: The Thirteenth Tale
Source: The Corrections (2001)
Context: All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool?
Source: Deals with the Devil, and Other Reasons to Riot
“What is truth? For the multitude, that which it continually reads and hears.”
Source: The Decline of the West, Vol 2: Perspectives of World History
“I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.”
Source: The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination
Source: Demon in My View
“And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.”
Source: The Pact
Source: The Throne of Fire
Source: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
“Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.”
Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 19
Source: The Writings of William James
“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”
Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed
Source: More Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol 2
Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
Source: She's Come Undone
“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”
Source: Invisible Monsters
Letter to Adrianna Enriques (October 1921), p. 83
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
