Quotes about the truth
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Statement written weeks before his death in 1994, as quoted in "Unseen Bill Hicks Clip" in Esquire (3 February 2014) https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/film/news/a5661/unseen-bill-hicks-clip/
Source: The Darkness That Comes Before
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
Annajanska (1919)
1910s
Source: Annajanska the Bolshevik Empress
Source: A Gracious Plenty
Source: The Lives of Christopher Chant
Source: Clockwork Prince
“Better to know the quick pain of truth than the ongoing pain of a long-held false hope.”
Source: Voice of the Gods
“You can't let facts get in the way of the truth.”
Source: NOS4A2
Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Source: Something Borrowed
"What I Believe" in The Forum 84 (September 1930), p. 139; some of these expressions were also used separately in other Mencken essays.
1930s
Context: I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty and the democratic form is as bad as any of the other forms.
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech — alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I —But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.
“The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.”
“Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?”
Source: The House of Mirth
“It is best not to go on for great quest for truth, it will only make you miserable”
“They say the only people who tell the truth are drunkards and children. Guess which one I am.”
“The truth frightens people because it isn't stable. It shifts every day.”
Source: The Museum of Extraordinary Things
“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things.”
名不正，则言不顺
Paraphrased as a chinese proverb stating "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name."
Source: The Analects of Confucius
Source: The Analects, Chapter XIII
Source: Envy
“Books are like truth serum-- if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”
Source: Freak the Mighty
“I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction.”
Letter to Anthony Collins (29 October 1703) http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1726#lf0128-09_head_098
“Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”
“And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth.”
Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Source: The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
“I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.”
Source: Self-Reliance
“I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.”
Source: Let the Great World Spin
“Such is human memory… you forget the truth and believe what makes you feel better.”
Source: The Sword of Summer
Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story
Source: The Solace of Open Spaces
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 32 : Morning
Context: One of the ghosts — an old woman — beckoned, urging her to come close.
Then she spoke, and Mary heard her say:
"Tell them stories. They need the truth. You must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories."
That was all, and then she was gone. It was one of those moments when we suddenly recall a dream that we’ve unaccountably forgotten, and back in a flood comes all the emotion we felt in our sleep. It was the dream she’d tried to describe to Atal, the night picture; but as Mary tried to find it again, it dissolved and drifted apart, just as these presences did in the open air. The dream was gone.
All that was left was the sweetness of that feeling, and the injunction to tell them stories.
“But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is… to tell the truth.”
Source: Marx in Soho: A Play on History
“We go on our hands and knees and crawl our way towards the truth”
Source: Atonement
Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores
“Vitam impendre vero. (To stake one's life for the truth.)”
Source: A Wrinkle in Time
Source: All the Pretty Horses (1992)
Context: He thought he'd be an object of some curiosity but the people he saw only nodded gravely to him and passed on. He carried the bucket back into the store and went down the street to where there was a small cafe and he entered and sat at one of the three small wooden tables. The floor of the cafe was packed mud newly swept and he was the only customer. He stood the rifle against the wall and ordered huevos revueltos and a cup of chocolate and he sat and waited for it to come and then he ate very slowly. The food was rich to his taste and the chocolate was made with canela and he drank it and ordered another and folded a tortilla and ate and watched the horses standing in the square across the street and watched the girls. They'd hung the gazebo with crepe and it looked like a festooned brush-pile. The proprietor showed him great courtesy and brought him fresh tortillas hot from the comal and told him that there was to be a wedding and that it would be a pity if it rained. He inquired where he might be from and showed surprise he'd come so far. He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.
All Said and Done (1972), p. 16 ISBN 1569249814
General sources
“Our feelings are unreliable and cannot be trusted to convey truth.”
Source: Living Beyond Your Feelings: Controlling Emotions So They Don't Control You
“When you find that people are not telling you the truth---look out!”
Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles
“The same principle that forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth.”
Illusions
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
Source: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: 2000s, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), p. 32
Source: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars
“There are worse things than a lie and there are better things than the truth!”
Source: Finnikin of the Rock
“To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.”
Source: Reflections on Gender and Science
Source: Eat, Pray, Love
Source: The Dream of a Common Language
“Adversity is the first path to truth.”