Quotes about the truth
page 16

“Why do you lie" I ask her.
"To block the truth."
Fair enough.
Naomi goes on. "Where did we get it in our heads that we need truth all the time? Sometimes lies are nice, you know? You don't have to know the truth all the time. It's too exhausting.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Lie, Time

“If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.”

Christopher Marlowe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Source: Dr. Faustus

Death

“What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you?”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Beauty, Knowledge

“The truth is the thing I invented so I could live.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

“I prefer to believe that people are good and honest and respect me enough to tell me the truth. It's not easy to find those people all the time, but they're out there.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

People, Time

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

Orson Scott Card Alvin Journeyman

Source: Alvin Journeyman

Way

“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”

Andre Dubus III book House of Sand and Fog

Source: House of Sand and Fog

Life, Joy

“And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn’t enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I’ve never been able to kill myself.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Death, Madness

“I've seen the truth, and it makes no sense.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Sense

“A book should be a garden that fits in the hands. Word-petals of color. Stems of strength. roots of truth. Turn a page and turn the seasons. Read the sentence and enjoy the roses.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Books, Color, Reading, Season

“Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!”

George Gordon Byron Don Juan

Source: Don Juan

Men, World

“And you know that when the truth is told that you can get what you want or you can just get old.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Variant: You can get what you want or you can just get old.

“Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.
-Maggie”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Hurt

“It's exhausting, the energy it takes to unknow a truth.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Doomed

Source: Doomed

“There is always room for at least two truths.”

Colum McCann book TransAtlantic

Source: TransAtlantic

“There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

“Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

The Sign (May 1938) This has been misquoted as: The pursuit of truth will set you free; even if you never catch up with it.

Hell

“The world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Venite, adoremus.”

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

World

“When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Spring, Idea

“I don't mind being called a liar. I am. I am a marvelous liar. But I hate being called a liar when I´m telling the perfect truth.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Hate, Perfection

“Honest is how I want to look. The truth doesn't glitter and shine.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

“The Universe doesn't like secrets. It conspires to reveal the truth, to lead you to it.”

Lisa Unger book Beautiful Lies

Source: Beautiful Lies

Secret, Universe

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star…”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"being to timelessness as it's to time" (1958)

For Wife, love, Relationship, Romantic

“Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth. If it is not that - if it is not moral in its effect - then love is no more than an exaggerated form of pleasure.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

Love, Pleasure, Hope, Thinking

“Maybe the truth is I really want to like you instead.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

“He'd never been an optimist. He saw the world as it was, or he tried to. That was a problem, though, when the truth he saw was so terrible.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

World, Problem

“Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“It would be better for us to have some doubts in an honest pursuit of truth, than it would be for us to be certain about something that was not true.”

Daniel Wallace (1959) American author

“There are no truths, only moments of claryty passing for answers.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

“Try to live so that you can always tell the truth.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”

George Bernard Shaw Back to Methuselah

Source: Back to Methuselah

“Keep your secrets
Keep your silence
It is a better gift than truth”

Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned

Source: The Queen of the Damned

Secret, Silence

“The truth is, it’s hard to get people to like you, but it’s even harder to keep people liking you.”

Mindy Kaling book Why Not Me?

Source: Why Not Me?

People

“The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

“Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: The Origin of Species

Life, Universe

“To tell you the truth I love Sam. It's not a movie kind of love either. I just look at her sometimes and I think she is the prettiest and nicest person in the whole world.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Love, World, Thinking, Personality

“People say the truth hurts. Hell no, it hurts even more if you do a whole bunch of foolishness to try and avoid it.”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

People, Hell, Hurt

“Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact

God, Faith, Universe

“It was so risky and so scary, and yet at the same time, so beautiful. Maybe the truth was, it shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Beauty, Time, Fight

“Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it, Mr. Watson–paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Variant: One can’t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You’re paying for it, Mr. Watson - paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty.
Source: Brave New World

Beauty, Happiness

“The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Men, Study

“It is a time of change,'' Sazed said. ''Perhaps it is also time to learn of other truths, other ways.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Way, Learning, Change, Time

“With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree.”

Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Source: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Madness

“It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without." ~ Poirot”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

“When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, “Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again”—my gut reaction is, “What a badass.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

People, Hurt

“Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, "I hate you, God." That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

God, Hate, Sincerity

“If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”

Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Source: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

People, Past

“Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.”

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (1933) Japanese actress

Source: Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window

Fear, Beauty, Music, Heart

“To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart - this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal.”

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) religious leader

Love, Waiting, Heart, Perfection

“If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Contributions of Jane Wagner

Beauty

“The truth has become an insult.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

“The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Micah

Source: Micah

Hell

“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Remarks at Amherst College (26 October 1963)
1963

Art, Forgetting

“*Oh, I know I could say were through
And tell myself I'm over you
But even if I made a vow
I promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I fell cause I, I just can't live a lie”

Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer

Lie

“And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Source: Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939

Lie, Feeling, Courage

“Only if we assume that a poet constantly strives to liberate himself from borrowed styles in search for reality, is he dangerous. In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Nobel lecture (8 December 1980)
Context: Only if we assume that a poet constantly strives to liberate himself from borrowed styles in search for reality, is he dangerous. In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. And, alas, a temptation to pronounce it, similar to an acute itching, becomes an obsession which doesn't allow one to think of anything else. That is why a poet chooses internal or external exile. It is not certain, however, that he is motivated exclusively by his concern with actuality. He may also desire to free himself from it and elsewhere, in other countries, on other shores, to recover, at least for short moments, his true vocation — which is to contemplate Being.

People, Search, Reality, Silence

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Pain, Sadness, Feeling, Soul

“I covet truth; beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Prose and Poetry

Youth, Beauty, Game, Childhood

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Reality

“One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.”

Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day

Source: The Remains of the Day

“And thus we all are nighing
The truth we fear to know:
Death will end our crying
For friends that come and go.”

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) American poet

Death, Fear, Cry

“There is no truth. There is only perception.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Quoted in The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, 1857-1880, ed. and trans. Francis Steegmuller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), xii.
Correspondence
Variant: There is no 'true'. There are merely ways of perceiving truth.

Deep

“… there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Heart

“There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

Life, Parting, Personality

“Tis strange - but true; for Truth is always strange,
Stranger than Fiction”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Variant: For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.

“Art flies around truth, but with the definite intention of not getting burnt. Its capacity lies in finding in the dark void a place where the beam of light can be intensely caught, without this having been perceptible before.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Source: Blue Octavo Notebooks

Art, Light

“Beauty breeds beauty, truth triggers truth. The cure for writer's block is therefore to read.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

Beauty, Reading

“Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Variant: Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it
Context: Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

“We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Love, Search, Help

“Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Variant: Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth.

“Truth is so rare, it is delightful to tell it.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

“Literature is the only access to truth we have on this planet.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Literature

“Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.”

George Gordon Byron book Manfred

Act I, scene i.
Manfred (1817)

Life, Knowledge, Tree

“We can’t choose what we want and don’t want and that’s the hard lonely truth. Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us. We can’t escape who we are.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

“We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Shadow & Claw

“Capital T-truth is about life before death.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Life, Death

“Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Variant: Everyone probably thinks that I'm a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I'd rather read a book.

Books, Thinking, Reading