Quotes about the truth
page 25

“The truth is that as soon as we are no longer obliged to earn our living, we no longer know what to do with our life and recklessly squander it.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Source: Journals, 1889-1949

Life

“It is an occupational hazard that anyone who has spent her life learning how to lie eventually becomes bad at telling the truth.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Life, Lie, Learning

“I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here… rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness… give me truth.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Love, Money, Faith

“The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Way

“There is something so intimate about saying the truth out loud. There is something so intimate about hearing the truth said. There is something so intimate about sharing the truth, even if you are not entirely sure what it means.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Christopher Hitchens vs. William Dembski, 18/11/2010 ( closing remarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwgYYxfpPC0) 2010s, 2010 Context: When Socrates was sentenced to death, for his philosophical investigations and his blasphemy for challenging the Gods of the city and he accepted his death. He did say "well, if we're lucky perhaps I'll be able to hold a conversation with other great thinkers and philosophers and doubters too", in other words that the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble and what is pure and what is true can always go on. Why is that important, why would I like to do that? Because that is the only conversation worth having. And whether it goes on or not after I die, I don't know, but I do know that it is the conversation I want to have while I am still alive. Which means that for me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet. That I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I urge you to look at those of you that tell you (at your age) that that you are dead until you believe as they do. (What a terrible thing to be telling to children.) And that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority. Don't think of that as a gift, think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside no matter how tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.

Wisdom, Beauty, Way, Thinking

“One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Sincerity

“The truth doesn't set you free, you know. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed and defenseless and red in the face and horrified and petrified
and vulnerable.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Feeling

“What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this -- two things: I crave truth. And I lie.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Lie

“And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.”

Mark Helprin book Winter's Tale

Source: Winter's Tale

Beauty

“To be persuasive, We must be believable,
To be believable, We must be credible,
To be credible, We must be truthful.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

Speaking as the Director of USIA, in testimony before a Congressional Committee (May 1963) http://pdaa.publicdiplomacy.org/?page_id=6 Context: American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.

Leadership

“It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

People, Failure

“Physicists have come to realize that mathematics, when used with sufficient care, is a proven pathway to truth.”

Brian Greene (1963) American physicist

Source: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

Mathematics

“I never gave anybody hell. I just told the truth and they think it's hell.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Source: As quoted in My Fellow Americans : The Most Important Speeches of America's Presidents (2003) by Michael Waldman, p. 137

Hell, Thinking

“In books, the truth makes everything good and fine. The good prevail. The wicked are punished. There is happiness. But it's not like that really, is it?"
"No," I say. "I suppose it only makes everything known.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Books, Happiness

“Sometimes the most ruthless heart speaks the most truth”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Heart

“I wanted to write about the moment when your addictions no longer hide the truth from you. When your whole life breaks down. That's the moment when you have to somehow choose what your life is going to be about.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Life

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: The Complete Poems

Beauty, Beauty

“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”

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

Faith, Learning, Falseness

“Truth wasn't something you went out and found. It was wide and vast and deep and unending, and all you could hope to see was a tiny part of it. And to see that part and to mistake it for the whole was to make of Truth a lie.”

Margaret Weis book Dragon Wing

Source: Dragon Wing

Lie, Hope, Parting

“If there was a god, he wouldn't let a guy walk right up and shoot you in the face now would he? That's right, now you get the picture. Truth burns doesn't it?”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

God, Guy

“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.”

Harry G. Frankfurt book On Bullshit

Source: On Bullshit

Lie, Thinking

“Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one?
A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.
Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth?
A. I am.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Part I, The Psychohistorians, section 6
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

Loyalty

“In my mind my obituary is done. It is done and it is right. It tells the truth and as awful as it can be, the truth is what matters. It is what I should be remembered by, if I'm remembered at all. Remember the truth. that is all that matters”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

“Truth cannot be constructed. To live in ideology is, as Havel so eloquently reminds us, inevitably to live in a lie. Truth can only be revealed. We cannot be creators, only receptors.”

James W. Sire (1933–2018) American writer

Lie

“Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

God

“Art still has truth. Take refuge there.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Art

“There are all kinds of truth… but behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.”

Flannery O’Connor book Wise Blood

Source: Wise Blood

“Words are the wellspring of the world, and language is the most powerful weapon in the ancient and still unfolding war between truth and lies.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: Innocence

War, World

“That an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Faith, Error

“we have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

“The sad truth is, they should never trust me.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Sadness

“We're going to have to let truth scream louder to our souls than the lies that have infected us.”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

Source: So Long, Insecurity: You've Been a Bad Friend to Us

Soul

“But what's real? You can't find the truth. You just pick the lie you like best. As long as you know that everything's a lie, you can't hurt yourself.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Lie, Hurt

“From time to time ponder whether you are unconsciously saying:
'Truth is what I happen to be thinking at this moment.”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

Thinking, Time

“Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Le Petit Soldat (film) (direction and screenplay, 1960).
[variation] Cinema is truth at twenty-four frames a second.

Time

“There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you.”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer

World

“I'm solitary as a pulled tooth,
Lonely as an unwelcome truth,
Lost as a minnow out of school,
A genius in a crop of fools.”

Gail Carson Levine Fairest

Source: Fairest

School, Fools

“The truth hit him. Jason wasn't quite Roman anymore. His time at Camp Half-Blood had changed him. Reyna had recognized that. Apparently, so did the undead legionnaires. If Jason no longer gave off the right sort of vibe, or aura of a Roman leader…”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Change, Time

“The sum of a million facts is not the truth.”

William Manchester (1922–2004) (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) American author, journalist and historian

“The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

Learning, Forgetting

“This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable.”

David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

World, Understanding

“Your truths are worse than your lies.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Shadows

“I hate the thought that I'm just some kind of Russian nesting doll with the big outside and inevitably, rattling around under all the layers, a crude little peg with a face is the truth of me.”

Wendy McClure (1971) American writer

Source: I'm Not the New Me

Hate

“Because even though the truth can set you free, that doesn't mean it won't be painful.”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Pain

“Ethical axioms are founded and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"The Laws of Science and the Laws of Ethics" (1950)
1950s, Out of My Later Years (1950)

“America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain. It's "winner take nothing" that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Our fate is to become one, and yet many— This is not prophecy, but description.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Epilogue.
Source: Invisible Man (1952)

Life, Fate, Country

“The only infallible truth of our lives is that everything we love in life will be taken from us.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Love, Life

“Would you rather live your life according to the approval of others or aligned with your truth and your dreams?”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class

Life, Dreams

“The best mind-altering drug is truth.”

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

Contributions of Jane Wagner

“The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day.”

Michael Chabon book Summerland

Source: Summerland

Game, Summer

“I've nothing against people who love truth. Apart from the fact that they make dull companions.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Love, People

“A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.”

Tom Bissell (1974) American journalist

“The stony-minded orthodox were right in fearing the first movement of new knowledge and free thought. It has gone on, and will go on, irresistibly, until some day we shall have no respect for an alleged "truth" which cannot stand the full blaze of knowledge, the full force of active thought.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, (1935).

Fear, Knowledge

“I readily admit that the law which requires presumption or custom to be carried back for a period of nearly 700 years, is a bad and mischievous law, and one which is discreditable to us as a civilised and enlightened people, but such is the law; and while it so continues, I consider myself, in administering it, as bound to administer it as I find it; nor do I feel myself warranted in undermining or frittering it away by subtle fictions or artificial presumptions inconsistent with truth and fact.”

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet (1802–1880) Lord Chief Justice

Bryant v. Foot (1867), 15 W. R. 425; S. C. L. R. 2 Q. B. Ca. 179.

People, Law, Feeling

“If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me … I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job … The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress.”

Gary Webb (1955–2004) American investigative journalist

Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press.

People, Appearance

“In the desert of my dreams I saw you there;
And I'm walking towards the water steaming body cold and bare.
But your words cut loose the fire and you left my soul to bleed.
And the pain that's in your truth's deceiving me, has got me scared.
Oh why?”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Vox
Song lyrics, Touch (1988)

Pain, Dreams, Soul, Water

“The most natural Beauty in the World is Honesty, and Moral Truth. For all Beauty is Truth. True Features make the Beauty of a Face; and true Proportions the Beauty of Architecture; as true Measures that of Harmony and Musick.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 1, p. 77; "Sensus Communis".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

World, Beauty, Nature

“a. Does a Human Being Have the Right to Let Himself Be Put to Death for the Truth? by H. H.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849)

Death

“Each form of the sacrosanct was regarded by members of the culture which gave rise to it as a revelation of the Truth; at Byzantium it was not a mere hypothesis that was sponsored by the majesty of the Byzantine style. To us, however, these forms make their appeal as forms alone — in other words, as they would be were they the work of a contemporary (and, since this actually is unthinkable, they affect us in a puzzling manner); or else as so many grandiose vestiges of a faith that has died out. We look at them from outside; they are still emotive, but they are no longer true. Thus we deprive them of what was their most vital element; for a religious civilization that regarded what it revered as a mere hypothesis is inconceivable.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Part IV, Chapter V
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

Faith

“The union of these four Presidents carved on the face of the everlasting hills of South Dakota will constitute a distinctly national monument. It will be decidedly American in conception, in its magnitude, in its meaning and altogether worthy of our Country. No one can look upon it understandingly without realizing that it is a picture of hope fulfilled. Its location will be significant. Here in the heart of the continent, on the side of a mountain which probably no white man had ever beheld in the days of Washington, in territory which was acquired by the action of Jefferson, which remained an unbroken wilderness beyond the days of Lincoln, which was especially beloved by Roosevelt, the people of the future will see history and art combined to portray the spirit of patriotism. They will know that the figure of these Presidents has been placed here because by following the truth they built for eternity. The fundamental principles which they represented have been wrought into the very being of our Country. They are steadfast as these ancient hills.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)

People, Hope, Art, History

“The truthful man is usually a liar.”

Alfred Nobel (1833–1896) Swedish chemist, innovator, and armaments manufacturer

“Mathematics because of its nature and structure is peculiarly fitted for high school instruction [Gymnasiallehrfach]. Especially the higher mathematics, even if presented only in its elements, combines within itself all those qualities which are demanded of a secondary subject. It engages, it fructifies, it quickens, compels attention, is as circumspect as inventive, induces courage and self-confidence as well as modesty and submission to truth. It yields the essence and kernel of all things, is brief in form and overflows with its wealth of content. It discloses the depth and breadth of the law and spiritual element behind the surface of phenomena; it impels from point to point and carries within itself the incentive toward progress; it stimulates the artistic perception, good taste in judgment and execution, as well as the scientific comprehension of things. Mathematics, therefore, above all other subjects, makes the student lust after knowledge, fills him, as it were, with a longing to fathom the cause of things and to employ his own powers independently; it collects his mental forces and concentrates them on a single point and thus awakens the spirit of individual inquiry, self-confidence and the joy of doing; it fascinates because of the view-points which it offers and creates certainty and assurance, owing to the universal validity of its methods. Thus, both what he receives and what he himself contributes toward the proper conception and solution of a problem, combine to mature the student and to make him skillful, to lead him away from the surface of things and to exercise him in the perception of their essence. A student thus prepared thirsts after knowledge and is ready for the university and its sciences. Thus it appears, that higher mathematics is the best guide to philosophy and to the philosophic conception of the world (considered as a self-contained whole) and of one’s own being.”

Christian Heinrich von Dillmann (1829–1899) German educationist

Source: Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (Stuttgart, 1889), p. 40.

World, School, Law, Exercises

“It was long ago in my life as a simple reporter that I decided that facts must never get in the way of truth.”

James Cameron (journalist) (1911–1985) British journalist

The Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), p. 173 http://books.google.com/books?id=Af84fBmzmVYC&q=%22It+was+long+ago+in+my+life+as+a+simple+reporter+that+I+decided+that+facts+must+never+get+in+the+way+of+truth%22&pg=PA173#v=onepage Attributed

Life, Way

“He, who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Aids to Reflection, "Moral and Religious Aphorisms," Aphorism 25 http://books.google.com/books?id=hEbwXNWXoBoC&q=%22He+who+begins+by+loving+Christianity+better+than+truth+will+proceed+by+loving+his+own+sect+or+church+better+than+Christianity+and+end+in+loving+himself+better+than+all%22&pg=PA74#v=onepage (1873)

Love

“You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

[Julian Assange, monk of the online age who thrives on intellectual battle, The Guardian, 2010-08-01, 2010-08-01, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan]

Way, Decision

“We must not think, "Well, we have all the truth, we understand the main pillars of our faith, and we may rest on this knowledge." The truth is an advancing truth, and we must walk in the increasing light.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

The Review and Herald (27 March 1890); also in Counsels for Writers and Editors http://books.google.de/books?id=UEM4uBD04asC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Counsels+to+writers+and+editors&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false (1946), p. 33; also in Evangelism http://books.google.de/books?id=gsy20ga71LEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Ellen+Gould+Harmon+White+Evangelism&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false (1946), p. 296; also in 1888 - The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials (1987), Ch. 64, p. 547.

Faith, Understanding, Knowledge, Thinking

“The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it.”

H. G. Wells book A Modern Utopia

Appendix, Scepticism of the Instrument
A Modern Utopia (1905)

“In many cases a dull proof can be supplemented by a geometric analogue so simple and beautiful that the truth of a theorem is almost seen at a glance.”

Martin Gardner (1914–2010) recreational mathematician and philosopher

"Mathematical Games", in Scientific American (October 1973); also quoted in Roger B. Nelson, Proofs Without Words: Exercises in Visual Thinking (1993), "Introduction", p. v

Beauty

“One reason nearly half my books are for children is the glorious fact that the minds of children are still open to the living word; in the child, nightside and sunside are not yet separated; fantasy contains truths which cannot be stated in terms of proof.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

The Crosswicks Journal, The Irrational Season (1977)

Children, Books

“In this assembly, every political school has its teachers — every creed has its adherents — and I may safely say, that this banquet is the tribute of United Ireland to the representative of American benevolence. Being such, I am at once reminded of the dinner which took place after the battle of Saratoga, at which Gates and Burgoyne — the rival soldiers — sat together. Strange scene! Ireland, the beaten and the bankrupt, entertains America, the victorious and the prosperous! Stranger still! The flag of the Victor decorates this hail — decorates our harbour — not, indeed, in triumph, but in sympathy — not to commemorate the defeat, but to predict the resurrection, of a fallen people! One thing is certain — we are sincere upon this occasion. There is truth in this compliment. For the first time in her career, Ireland has reason to be grateful to a foreign power. Foreign power, sir! Why should I designate that country a "foreign power," which has proved itself our sister country? England, they sometimes say, is our sister country. We deny the relationship — we discard it. We claim America as our sister, and claiming her as such, we have assembled here this night. Should a stranger, viewing this brilliant scene inquire of me, why it is that, amid the desolation of this day — whilst famine is in the land — whilst the hearse-plumes darken the summer scenery of the island, whilst death sows his harvest, and the earth teems not with the seeds of life, but with the seeds of corruption — should he inquire of me, why it is, that, amid this desolation, we hold high festival, hang out our banners, and thus carouse — I should reply, "Sir, the citizens of Dublin have met to pay a compliment to a plain citizen of America, which they would not pay — 'no, not for all the gold in Venice'”

Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) Irish nationalist & American politician

to the minister of England."
Ireland and America (1846)

Life, Death, People, School

“He who fears and doubts cannot make any progress either in the spiritual or worldly sphere. The mind is cramped. He alone is a hero, he alone attains greatness, who moves forward to realise the truth without caring whether the world is real or not.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

The Apostles of Sri Ramakrishna

World, Fear

“Soft-brained people, weak-minded, chicken-hearted, cannot find the truth. One has to be free, and as broad as the sky.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

People, Heart

“The truth “I exist” is self-evident. You may deny God by saying, “God is just a belief,” but existence cannot be refuted. That existence, that Cosmic Power, is God. God has no separate hands, legs, eyes, or body, other than our own. He moves through our hands, He walks with our legs, He sees through our eyes, and it is He who beats within the heart of each one of us.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Unity is Peace (1995)

God, Heart

“Without [the coup perpetrators] divulging the information they have, there can not really be any reconciliation. It will merely be a vehicle for them to escape justice as is the provision in the current Bill. There is no compulsion on them to come and tell the truth to the Commission about what actually happened, who were behind it, who were the key figures?”

Mahendra Chaudhry (1942) Fijian politician

2 August 2005
Opposition to the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission

Justice

“Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults, bargains or compromises.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

Of God and Men, p. 39

“Hall: This is all nonsense [and] you're getting all hot under the collar about nothing. It's the Great British patois. All great truths begin as blasphemies, so why castigate Rooney, young tender sweet bud-on-the-vine [Wayne] Rooney. Your average ten year old can instruct you in oral and anal sex.”

Stuart Hall (1929–2014) sociologist and cultural theorist

O'Connell and Rawling swiftly interrupt.
BBC Fighting Talk (2005)

Sex

“[Atheism] believes that truth for truth's sake is the highest ideal and that virtue is its own reward.”

Joseph Lewis (1889–1968) American activist

The Philosophy of Atheism

“Freemasonry… has no pretension to assume a place among the religions of the world as a sectarian "system of faith and worship," in the sense in which we distinguish Christianity from Judaism, or Judaism from Mohammedanism. In this meaning of the word we do not and can not speak of the Masonic religion, nor say of a man that he is not a Christian, but a Freemason. Here it is that the opponents of Freemasonry have assumed mistaken ground in confounding the idea of a religious Institution with that of the Christian religion as a peculiar form of worship, and in supposing, because Freemasonry teaches religious truth, that it is offered as a substitute for Christian truth and Christian obligation.”

Albert Mackey (1807–1881) U.S. writer on freemasonry

91912), p. 618.
An encyclopedia of freemasonry and its kindred sciences, (1912)

World, Faith, Religion, Idea

“As to the notion that the Brazilian nation see the criminality of slave trade and have for ever abjured it such a notion is too childish for a grown man really to entertain, however it may suit the Brazilians to endeavour to make it accepted. The plain truth is that the Portuguese are of all European nations the lowest in the moral state and the Brazilians are degenerate Portuguese, demoralized by slavery and slave trade, and all the degrading and corrupting influences connected with both… I have laboured indefatigably all the time I was at the Foreign Office to put an end to the slave trade, and though not with entire at all events with some considerable success and nothing shall induce me to load my conscience with the guilt of having been a party to promoting its revival. I am afraid Bright has been at you upon these Brazilian matters. He has always professed great horror of slave trade and has invariably opposed the employment of any and every means by which it could be made to cease.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to John Russell (5 October 1864), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), p. 544.
1860s

Time, Success

“It awes by the majesty of its truths, it agitates by the force of its compunctions, it penetrates the heart by the tenderness of its appeals, and it casts over the abyss of thought, the shadow of its eternal grandeur.”

Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 140.

Heart

“Doctrine is the frame-work of life; it is the skeleton of truth, to be clothed and rounded out by the living graces of a holy life. It is only the lean creature whose bones become offensive.”

Adoniram Judson Gordon (1836–1895) American hymnwriter

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 194.

Life, Clothes

“Just as the Bible teaches the Golden Rule — “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” — the Mahabharata (5.39.57), predating the Bible, teaches a similar truth, and in almost the exact same wording. Yogis and spiritual adepts in India extend the teaching to its logical limits, showing kindness to all species of life — and this, of course, means vegetarianism. It is hard to be kind to animals if you are eating them. In other words, if you don't want someone eating your entrails, don't eat the entrails of others.”

Steven J. Rosen (1955) American editor, author on Vaishnavism

“The New Carnivores”, in The Agni and the Ecstasy (London: Arktos, 2012), p. 100 https://books.google.it/books?id=fYjX7W6SCLMC&pg=PA100.

Life, Animals

“When I behold the scientific and so-called philosophers full of selfish feelings, and of a tenency to war against circumstances and Providence, I say to myself: They are not true priests, they are but half prophets — it not absolutely false ones. They have read the great page simply with the physical eye, and with none of the spirit within. The intellectual, the moral, the religious seem to me all naturally bound up and interlinked together in one great and harmonious whole… That God is one, and that all the works and the feelings He has called into existence are ONE; this is a truth (a biblical and scriptural truth too) not in my opinion developed to the apprehension of most people in its really deep and unfanthomable meaning. There is too much tendency to making separate and independent bundles of both the physical and the moral facts of the universe. Whereas, all and everything is naturally related and interconnected. A volume could I write you on this subject.”

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) English mathematician, considered the first computer programmer

In a letter to Andrew Crosse, as quoted in Eugen Kölbing's Englische Studien, Volume 19 https://archive.org/stream/englischestudien19leipuoft#page/158/mode/1up (1894), Leipzig; O.R. Reisland, "Byron's Daughter", p. 158.

God, War, People, Feeling

“Now, the truth of the matter is that the idea of the meaning of the word 'federal' underwent a change from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the states gave up their sovereignty in the Calhounian sense. And if you have any doubt about that, let me just read a sentence from George Washington. 'It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

So all the rights of independent sovereignty, or some of those rights, have been surrendered.
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Rebuttal

Idea, Sense, Change, Reading

“Pure and absolute truth can only be found beyond all its possible expressions; these expressions, as such, cannot claim the attributes of this truth, their relative remoteness from it is expressed by their differentiation and multiplicity, by which they are strictly limited.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions

The Transcendent Unity of Religions (1953; revised edition 1984)

“You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right—at least if you have any experience—because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. …The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

as quoted by K.C. Cole, Sympathetic Vibrations: Reflections on Physics as a Way of Life (1985)

People, Beauty

“Grant that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is God's truth, and I know not in what way you can escape the doctrine that there is salvation only in Christ. From the liberality which says every body is right — from the charity which forbids you to say any body is wrong—from the peace which is bought at the expense of truth, may the good Lord deliver you.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 528.

God, Peace, Way, Christ

“By induction we gain no certain knowledge; but by observation, and the inverse use of deductive reasoning, we estimate the probability that an event which has occurred was preceded by conditions of specified character, or that such conditions will be followed by the event. …I have no objection to use the words cause and causation, provided they are never allowed to lead us to imagine that our knowledge of nature can attain to certainty. …We can never recur too often to the truth that our knowledge of the laws and future events of the external world are only probable.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Source: The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874) Vol. 1, pp. 257, 260 & 271

World, Law, Imagination, Nature

“You will study the wisdom of the past, for in a wilderness of conflicting counsels, a trail has there been blazed. You will study the life of mankind, for this is the life you must order, and, to order with wisdom, must know. You will study the precepts of justice, for these are the truths that through you shall come to their hour of triumph. Here is the high emprise, the fine endeavor, the splendid possibility of achievement, to which I summon you and bid you welcome.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Excerpt from speech delivered at the 74th commencement of the Albany Law School on June 10, 1925, which is reproduced on a gigantic plaque on the west side (facing the setting sun, as if to say, "Go West, young man.") of the UC Berkeley School of Law's main building, Boalt Hall.
Other writings

Life, Wisdom, Justice, Study

“Make sure of two things. Be careful — microphones are always hot, and understand that in Washington, D. C., a gaffe is when you tell the truth. So, be careful.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Speech to national conference http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/06/biden-a-gaffe-is-when-you-tell-the-truth-126866.html of the National Association of Black Journalists, Washington, D.C. (June 20, 2012) 2010s

Understanding

“The [Afghans] understand the difficult truth that their best hope of freedom lies in a temporary experience of imperial rule.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

"Nation Building Lite", New York Times Magazine (July 2002)

Hope, Understanding, Freedom

“I stood in front of a hundred and one critics at a critic's convention and a critic asked me, "Miss Cho, isn't it true that your management asked you to lose weight to play the part of yourself in your own TV show?" Gail [the producer] grabbed the mike from me and said, "There is no truth in that whatsoever."”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

I...was so...hungry.
From Her Tours and CDs, I'm The One That I Want Tour

Parting

“Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.”

Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) philosopher, rhetorician, historian and jurist from Italy

The New Science 144 (1744)

People, Idea

“If we don't speak up, our voices won't be heard in the international community. Even if the decision cannot be changed (Taichung's East Asian Youth Games host city revocation), we need to get more people to understand the truth.”

Lin Chia-lung (1964) Taiwanese politician

Lin Chia-lung (2018) cited in " Taiwan must speak out against China's suppression: Taichung mayor http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aall/201807300034.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 30 July 2018

People, Youth, Game, Communication

“If I had not actually got into this work and been called of God, I would back out. But I cannot back out: I have no doubt of the truth.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 5:336 (6 April 1843)
1840s

God

“Man is a mimic animal, happiest acting a part, needing a mask to tell the truth.”

Subhash Kak (1947) Indian computer scientist

The Prajna Sutra (2007)

Animals, Parting

“The calculus is to mathematics no more than what experiment is to physics, and all the truths produced solely by the calculus can be treated as truths of experiment. The sciences must proceed to first causes, above all mathematics where one cannot assume, as in physics, principles that are unknown to us. For there is in mathematics, so to speak, only what we have placed there… If, however, mathematics always has some essential obscurity that one cannot dissipate, it will lie, uniquely, I think, in the direction of the infinite; it is in that direction that mathematics touches on physics, on the innermost nature of bodies about which we know little.”

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment

Elements de la géométrie de l'infini (1727) as quoted by Amir R. Alexander, Geometrical Landscapes: The Voyages of Discovery and the Transformation of Mathematical Practice (2002) citing Michael S. Mahoney, "Infinitesimals and Transcendent Relations: The Mathematics of Motion in the Late Seventeenth Century" in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David C. Lindberg, Robert S. Westman (1990)

Lie, Mathematics, Nature, Thinking

“Let me start by sharing some of my own hard truths. First, all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups. It was unfair to the Healy siblings and to countless others like them. It was unfair to too many people.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

People, Law, History, Siblings

“I was… informed, that Baptista Porta, and one or two more, had written somewhat of that Subject, upon this Information I was willing to see whether I might from any of them find any Directions, that might help mee, if I should afterwards have the like Occasion: But I found very little in any of them for my Purpose. Their Businesse being for the most Part, onely to shew how to write in Cipher, (which was not my Work,) and that Things so written were beyond the Skill of Men to decipher. Onely in Baptista Porta (who alone if I mistake not, hath written any Thing to Purpose about deciphering, and was it seemes famous in his Time for his Abilities that Way;) I found that there were some general Directions, such as were obvious from the Nature of the Thing, and which I had before of myself taken Notice of, and made use of so far as the Nature of an intricate Cipher would permit. But the Truth of it is, there are scarce any of his Rules, which the present Way of Cipher (which is now much improved, beyond what, it seemes, it was in his Days) doth not in a Manner wholly elude…”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

p, 125
An Essay on the Art of Decyphering (1737)

Men, Way, Nature, Time

Quotes about the truth page 25

Quotes about the truth
page 25