Quotes about the truth (8068 quotes, page 35)

“Knowledge is also inferred from what is accepted as established knowledge, with new knowledge being based on the best explanation. This includes possible truths subject to proof.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.108

Knowledge

“Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

The Reason of Church Government, Introduction, Book ii

Study

“The eyes would soon grow dim if they had no correspondence with light. The lungs would soon perish without any correspondence with air. The mind that has no relation with truth is said to be in a state of unbalance, and the spirit too must have some traffic with God, its relevant Environment, if it is to maintain its fullest health.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.220

God , Health , Light

“I stopped reading the comics page a long time ago. It seems that whoever is in charge of what to put on that page is given an edict that states: “For God’s sake, try to be as bland as possible and by no means offend any one!” Thus, whenever something like Doonesbury would come along, it would be continually censored and, if lucky, eventually banished to the editorial pages. The message was clear: Keep it simple, keep it cute, and don’t be challenging, outrageous or political.
And keep it white!
It’s odd that considering all the black ink that goes into making the comics section (and color on Sundays) that you rarely see any black faces on that page. Well, maybe it’s not so odd after all, considering the makeup of most newsrooms in our country. It is even more stunning when you consider that in many of our large cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago where the white population is barely a third of the overall citizenry, the comics pages seem to be one of the last vestiges of the belief that white faces are just…well, you know…so much more happy and friendly and funny!
Of course, the real funnies are on the front pages of most papers these days. That’s where you can see a lot of black faces. The media loves to cover black people on the front page. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper.
Oops, there I go playing the race card. You see, in America these days, we aren’t supposed to talk about race. We have been told to pretend that things have gotten better, that the old days of segregation and cross burnings are long gone, and that no one needs to talk about race again because, hey, we fixed that problem.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, the “whites only” signs are down, but they have just been replaced by invisible ones that, if you are black, you see hanging in front of the home loan department of the local bank, across the entrance of the ritzy suburban or on the doors of the U. S. Senate”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

100 percent Caucasian and going strong!
Foreword to "The Boondocks Treasury: a Right to be Hostile" by Aaron McGruder, (2003).
2003

Love , Men , God , People

“I grant you that the artist does not see Nature as she appears to the vulgar, because his emotion reveals to him the hidden truths beneath appearances.
But, after all, the only principle in Art is to copy what you see. Dealers in esthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal. There is no recipe for improving nature.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Art, 1912, Ch. I. Realism in Art, p. 33

Art , Nature , Appearance

“The greater the truth the greater the libel.”

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough (1750–1818) Lord Chief Justice of England

Attributed to Lord Ellenborough (c. 1789). Burns credits it to Lord Mansfield.
Attributed

“If today he descended from Heaven, the great warrior who struck the moneychangers. You would once again shout crucify! And nail him to the cross that he himself carried. But he would gently laugh at your hatred. The truth remains even when your bearers are passed. Faith remains, because I give my life… And the fighter of all the world towers on the cross.”

Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) German Nazi leader convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial

About Christ, Evangelium im Dritten Reich, July 1, 1934. Quoted in "The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945" by Richard Steigmann-Gall - Religion - 2003

Life , World , Faith

“What is the Truth? was askt of yore. Reply all object Truth is one
As twain of halves aye makes a whole; the moral Truth for all is none.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

“The Afghans have stood firm in the face of all odds and pressures and have indeed made the greatest of sacrifices. They have sacrificed a million and a half people. They are no longer afraid of death. The truth is that when death seems far away then fear of it is magnified, but this fear disappears for those who see it close to them. For the Afghans, death is no longer something to be avoided!”

Israr Ahmed

http://www.jamiat.org.za/al-jamiat/june/taliban.html.

Death , People , Fear

“Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Maxim 715, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

Error

“On the 15th of April 1744, I described the principle upon which the following work is based, in the public assembly of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, as reported in the Acts of that academy.
At the end of the same year, Professor Euler published his excellent book Methodus inveniendi lineas curvas maximi minimive proprietate gaudentes. In a supplement to his book, this illustrious geometer showed that, in the trajectory of a particle acted on by a central force, the velocity multiplied by the line element of the trajectory is minimized.
This observation gave me great pleasure, as a beautiful application of my principle to the motion of the planets, which is determined by this principle.
From the same principle, I will now try to derive higher and more important truths.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique (1746)

Pleasure , Books , Beauty , Science

“O my brothers, this is not a day of merry-making because the night of the 19th, at three o'clock, Guru Maharaj Ji [nt: Maharaji's father Hans Ji Maharaj] left his body. But I feel that Guru Maharaj Ji is alive and always will remain alive. So many times, Guru Maharaj Ji has come to this world. There have been many, many Perfect Masters and each one has revealed the very same Knowledge. You have not understood. Each Divine Incarnation has gone away and still you have not realized the Knowledge He brought. Now, if you want to know the Truth, then get that Supreme Knowledge soon, because this body will be destroyed one day. You have got to get Knowledge as soon as possible, otherwise the shop will be closed.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

July 29, 1966, Prem Nagar, India (translated from Hindi)
1960s

World , Feeling , Knowledge , Time

“We swear by the Quran and Sunnah, and we will not compromise with any infidel…. Islam is the truth and all else is falsehood.”

Abu Bakar Bashir (1938) Indoneisan Islamist

101 East- Inside Indonesia's Islamic schools, 2007-08-23 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DMMKBSTiyA,

“God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.”

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

Intellect
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

God

“There can be no absolute reality, there can be no absolute truth.”

Kevin Warwick (1954) British robotics and cybernetics researcher

in Kevin Warwick "The Matrix - Our Future?", Chapter in "Philosophers Explore the Matrix", edited by C.Grau, Oxford University Press, 2005.

Reality

“Nothing can be more untrue than to pretend that the general religious mind of India has not at all grasped the higher spiritual or metaphysical truths of Indian religion. It is a sheer falsehood or a wilful misunderstanding to say that it has lived always in the externals only of rite and creed and shibboleth. On the contrary, the main metaphysical truths of Indian religious philosophy in their broad idea-aspects or in an intensely poetic and dynamic representation have been stamped on the general mind of the people. The ideas of Maya, Lila, divine Immanence are as familiar to the man in the street and the worshipper in the temple as to the philosopher in his seclusion, the monk in his monastery and the saint in his hermitage. The spiritual reality which they reflect, the profound experience to which they point, has permeated the religion, the literature, the art, even the popular religious songs of a whole people.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Indian Spirituality and Life (1919)

People , Religion , Art , Literature

“It is all work and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred World. The hands of forgotten brave men have made it a World for us; they,— honour to them; they, in spite of the idle and the dastard. This English Land, here and now, is the summary of what was found of wise, and noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the generations of English Men. Our English Speech is speakable because there were Hero-Poets of our blood and lineage; speakable in proportion to the number of these. This Land of England has its conquerors, possessors, which change from epoch to epoch, from day to day; but its real conquerors, creators, and eternal proprietors are these following, and their representatives if you can find them: All the Heroic Souls that ever were in England, each in their degree; all the men that ever cut a thistle, drained a puddle out of England, contrived a wise scheme in England, did or said a true and valiant thing in England.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Men , God , People , World

“Worry is a purely selfish expression. The fact is that to worry or suffer mentally you have to have an opinion. You have to say 'That is bad in relation to me.' The opinion will prevent you from seeing the truth.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

Suffering , Selfishness

“Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

J 77
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook J (1789)

People

“In a world that daily disconnects further from truth, more and more people accept the virtual in place of the real, and all things virtual are also malleable.”

Dean Koontz book The Good Guy

Krait's musings
Source: The Good Guy (2007), Chapter 21, p. 147

People , World

“We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Gentlemen-Rankers, Stanza 4.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

Love , God , Youth , Hope

“For if experience has ever taught a truth, it is that a plurality in the supreme Executive will forever split into discordant factions, distract the nation, annihilate its energies, and force the nation to rally under a single head, generally an usurper. We have, I think, fallen on the happiest of all modes of constituting the Executive, that of easing and aiding our President, by permitting him to choose Secretaries of State, of Finance, of War, and of the Navy, with whom he may advise, either separately or all together, and remedy their divisions by adopting or controlling their opinions at his discretion; this saves the nation from the evils of a divided will, and secures to it a steady march in the systematic course which the President may have adopted for that of his administration.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)

War , Thinking , Evil

“Things we never said come together,
The hidden truth no longer haunting me.
Tonight we touched on the things that were never spoken,
That kind of understanding sets me free.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

The Last Song
Song lyrics, The One (1992)

Understanding

“When you cross any border there is always an uneasy moment when you feel yourself automatically an enemy. Artists don’t belong to any group or country... When you are living the truth, the world no longer exists, events become unimportant. But the way of truth is not easy.... if you are on the side of truth, you have no power. That’s why you are always defeated. The power, all the power, is on the side of the world... I have been completely absorbed in my adventure. No country, no family, no ties. I didn’t exist anymore. I just had to press on.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

2 April 1967; p. 63
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

World , Family , Way , Feeling

“When a community has sufficiently advanced so that its government begins to take on that of the nature of a republic, the processes of education become even more important, but the method is necessarily reversed. It is all the more necessary under a system of free government that the people should be enlightened, that they should be correctly informed, than it is under an absolute government that they should be ignorant. Under a republic the institutions of learning, while bound by the constitution and laws, are in no way subservient to the government. The principles which they enunciate do not depend for their authority upon whether they square with the wish of the ruling dynasty, but whether they square with the everlasting truth. Under these conditions the press, which had before been made an instrument for concealing or perverting the facts, must be made an instrument for their true representation and their sound and logical interpretation. From the position of a mere organ, constantly bound to servitude, public prints rise to a dignity, not only of independence, but of a great educational and enlightening factor. They attain new powers, which it is almost impossible to measure, and become charged with commensurate responsibilities.”

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

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

People , Education , Law , Way

“Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 3
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1816)

Life , Dreams , Music , Mountain

“The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, First Inaugural Address (1933)

Money

“I do not care if people agree or disagree with my particular brand of knowledge or formulation of truth (for we all must have that for ourselves) but they are impossible to help if completely satisfied with their own. To me, the ultimate hell (if there is a hell, which I very much doubt) would be a state of complete satisfaction with one's own viewpoint and therefore such a static condition that all evolution in thought and all progress would be permanently arrested.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Unfinished Autobiography (1951), Chapter II, Part 1

People , Hell , Knowledge , Help

“Many causes produce war. There are ancient hatreds, turbulent frontiers, the "legacy of old forgotten, far-off things, and battles long ago." There are new-born fanaticisms. Convictions on the part of certain peoples that they have become the unique depositories of ultimate truth and right.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Address at Chautauqua, New York (1936)

War , People , Parting

“The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

U.S. News & World Report (August 9, 1982)

“It is from the education of the new generations that we will especially be able to expect a real moral progress. It is important first of all to develop in it (or 'him', the next generations…) self-control, love of truth and solidarity spirit.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 58.

Love , Education

“The notion of the "axis of evil" has an interesting provenance. In early drafts of the President's speech the "axis of evil" was the "axis of hatred", "axis" having been settled on for its associations with the enemy in the second world war. The "axis of hatred" at this point consisted of only two countries, Iran and Iraq. whereas of course the original axis consisted of three (Germany, Italy, Japan). It was additionally noticed that Iran and Iraq, while not both Arab, were both Muslim. So they brought in North Korea.
We may notice, in this embarras of the inapposite, that the Axis was an alliance, whereas Iran and Iraq are blood-bespattered enemies, and the zombie nation of North Korea is, in truth, so mortally ashamed of itself that it can hardly bear to show its face.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"The Palace of the End" (2003)

War , World , Evil , Country

“Citizens around the world have long declared a desire to be trusted with the formation of their own opinions, and that can only come when they have access to the facts. This is the essence of the information war. Do we trust citizens to communicate freely and come to their own conclusions, or do we believe those in authority have a right to restrict and manipulate what we know? Do we hold to Enlightenment ideals of reason and the pursuit of truth no matter where that takes us, or put our faith in authority to make certain an uncertain world?”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page x.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

War , World , Faith , Communication

“Our own attitude to intercourse with "spirits" must be determined not by the authority of great teachers of the 13th or any other century, but by our examination in the light of the best secular knowledge of our time of the revelation of spiritual truth given by Christ.”

Ernest Barnes (1874–1953) English mathematician and clergyman

Spiritualism and the Christian Faith (1918)

Knowledge , Light , Teachers , Time

“When terms… evolve and change definition with time; and when the social reality which terms are intended to organize and render intelligible is also seen to be in flux, capturing the truth in a net of words becomes a matter of intuition and style more than of any scientific method that can be replicated by others and made to achieve the same result every time someone asks the same question, or undertakes the same operations.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

Discrepancies among the Social Sciences (1981)

Intelligence , Question , Reality , Change

“4087. Seeing's believing, but feeling's the truth.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Feeling

“Obsequiousness begets friends, truth hatred.”
Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit.

Terence Andria

Act I, scene i, Line 41
Andria (The Lady of Andros)

“He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Life-Line

Life-Line (p. 16)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Thinking

“Basic truth about the colonies, Heaslop. Any time there's trouble, you can put it down to books. Too many of the wrong ideas getting into the heads of the wrong sorts of people. If ever the Empire comes to ruin, Heaslop, mark my words, the British publisher will be to blame.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel

People , Books , Idea , Time

“The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

On the Athenian Orators http://books.google.com/books?id=qb0OAAAAYAAJ&q="The+object+of+oratory+alone+is+not+truth+but+persuasion"&pg=PA135#v=onepage (August 1824)

“The love between brothers is a strong support through life, that is an old truth, let us look for that support, may experience strengthen the bond between us, and let us be true and outspoken toward each other, let there he no secrets — as it is now.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in a letter of Vincent to brother Theo van Gogh, from Etten (Netherlands), Spring, 1877; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 90), p. 7
1870s

Love , Life , Secret , Support

“There is no other species on the Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 333

Understanding , Nature , Science , Perfection

“The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 17
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

Error , Appearance , Falseness

“Good Lord, I see Thee that art very Truth; and I know in truth that we sin grievously every day and be much blameworthy; and I may neither leave the knowing of Thy truth, nor do I see Thee shew to us any manner of blame. How may this be?
For I knew by the common teaching of Holy Church and by mine own feeling, that the blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us, from the first man unto the time that we come up unto heaven: then was this my marvel that I saw our Lord God shewing to us no more blame than if we were as clean and as holy as Angels be in heaven.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 50
Context: Yet here I wondered and marvelled with all the diligence of my soul, saying thus within me: Good Lord, I see Thee that art very Truth; and I know in truth that we sin grievously every day and be much blameworthy; and I may neither leave the knowing of Thy truth, nor do I see Thee shew to us any manner of blame. How may this be?
For I knew by the common teaching of Holy Church and by mine own feeling, that the blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us, from the first man unto the time that we come up unto heaven: then was this my marvel that I saw our Lord God shewing to us no more blame than if we were as clean and as holy as Angels be in heaven. And between these two contraries my reason was greatly travailed through my blindness, and could have no rest for dread that His blessed presence should pass from my sight and I be left in unknowing how He beholdeth us in our sin. For either behoved me to see in God that sin was all done away, or else me behoved to see in God how He seeth it, whereby I might truly know how it belongeth to me to see sin, and the manner of our blame. My longing endured, Him continually beholding; — and yet I could have no patience for great straits and perplexity, thinking: If I take it thus that we be no sinners and not blameworthy, it seemeth as I should err and fail of knowing of this truth; and if it be so that we be sinners and blameworthy, — Good Lord, how may it then be that I cannot see this true thing in Thee, which art my God, my Maker, in whom I desire to see all truths?

God , Art , Angels , Feeling

“The truth is that liberal humanism is at once largely ineffectual, and the best ideology of the 'human' that present bourgeois society can muster.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Conclusion: political Criticism, p. 174
1980s, Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983)

“There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival of the external forms which served to express those inner feelings in an earlier age.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

I. Kandinsky's introduction
1910 - 1915, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911

Age , Art , Feeling

“We are at that one of life's hours (it strikes for every man) when truth imposes itself, by itself, with irresistible obviousness, when each of us has only to stretch forth his arms to reach at a single bound the surface of shadows, even the sunlight of God. Then is human prudence but a snare and a delusion. Sanctity!' cried out the old priest in a deep voice; 'by saying this word in your presence and for you alone, I know the hurt I inflict upon you! You are not unaware of what sanctity is: a vocation, a calling. Up to the place where God awaits you you will have to climb—climb, or be lost. Expect no human help.”

Georges Bernanos book Under the Sun of Satan

Source: Sous le soleil de Satan (Under the Sun of Satan), 1926, pp.101-102, Fr. Menou-Segrais to the young Fr. Donissan

Life , God , Help , Hurt

“A very eminent writer has observed, that "the conversion of the Gentile world, whether we consider the difficulties attending it, the opposition made to it, the wonderful work wrought to accomplish it, or the happy effects and consequences of it, may be considered as a more illustrious evidence of God's power, than even our Saviour's miracles of casting out devils, healing the sick, and raising the dead." Indeed, a miracle said to have been wrought without any attending circumstances to justify such an exertion of divine power, could not easily be rendered credible; and our author's argument proves no more. If it were related, that about 1700 years ago, a man was raised from the dead, without its answering any other end than that of restoring him to life, Iconfess that no degree of evidence could induce me tobelieve it; but if the moral government of God appeared in that event, and there were circumstances attending it which could not be accounted for by any human means, the fact becomes credible. When two extraordinary events are thus connected, the proof of one established the truth of the other. Our author has reasoned upon the fact as standing alone, in which case it would not be easy to disprove some of his reasoning; but the fact should be considered in a moral view - as connected with the establishment of a pure religion, and it then becomes credible. In the proof of any circumstance, we must consider every principle which tends to establish it; whereas our author, by considering the case of a man said to have been raised from the dead, simpli in a physical point of view, without any reference to a moral end, endavours to show that it cannot be rendered credible; and, from such principles, we may admit his conclusions without affecting the credibility of Christianity. The general principle on which he establishes his argument, is not the great foundation upon which the evidence of Christianity rests. He says, "Notestimony can be sufficient to establish a miracle, unless it be of such a kind, that the falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endavours to prove." Now this reasoning, at furthest, can only be admitted in those cases where the fact has nothing but testimony to establish it. But the proofs of Christianity do not rest simply upon the testimony of its first promulgators, and that of those who were affterwards the instruments of communicating it; but they rest principally upon the acknowledged and very extraordinary affects which were produced by the preaching of a few unlearned, obscure persons, who taught "Christ crucified;" and it is upon these indisuptable matters of ffact which we reason; and when the effects are totally unaccountable upon any principle which we can collect from the operation of human means, we must either admit miracles, or admit an effect without an adequate cause. Also, when the proof of any position depends upon arguments drawn from various sources, all concutring to establish its turh, to select some one circumstance, and atrempt to show that that alone is not sufficient to render the fact credible, and thence infer that it is not ture, is a conclusion not to be admitted. But it is thus that our author has endavoured to destroy the credibiliry of Christianity, the evidences of which depend upon a great variety of circumstances and facts which are indisputably true, all cooperating to confirm its truth; but an examination of these falls not whithin the plan here proposed. He rests all his arguments upon the extraordinary nature of the fact, considered alone by itself; for a common fact, with the same evidence, would immediately be admitted. I have endavoured to show, that the extraordinary nature, as much as the mosst common events are necessary to fulfill the usual dispensations of Providence, and therefore the Deity was then direted by the same motive as in a more ordinary case, that of affording us such assitance as our moral condition renders necessary. In the establishment of a pur religion, the proof of its divine origin may require some very extraordinary circumstances which may never afterwards be requisite, and accordingly we find that they have not happened. Here is therefore a perfect concistencty in the operation of the Deity, in his moral government, and not a violation of the laws of nature: Secondly, the fact is immediately connected with others which are indisputably true, and which, without the supossition of the truth of that fact, would be, at least, equally miraculous. Thus I conceive the reasoning of our author to be totally inconclusive; and the argumentss which have been employed to prove the fallacy of his conclusions, appear at the same time, fully to justify our belief in, and prove the moral certainty of, our holy religion.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 27; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA262," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 262-263

Life , God , World , Religion

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

The Life of Milton
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

Pleasure , Art , Imagination , Help

“The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.”

Phillip E. Johnson Wedge strategy

This is from a summary of Johnsons ideas on the "Wedge strategy" which appeared in "Missionary Man" by Rob Boston in Church and State Magazine (April 1999) http://web.archive.org/web/20010508032051/http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs4995.htm, and not a direct quote. See also "Bad Philip Johnson Quote" at Panda's Thumb http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/02/post-4.html
Misattributed

God , People , Question

“I have spoken of the forceful sonnets of that tragic Portuguese, Antero de Quental, who died by his own hand. Feeling acutely for the plight of his country on the occasion of the British ultimatum in 1890, he wrote as follows: "An English statesman of the last century, who was also undoubtedly a perspicacious observer and a philosopher, Horace Walpole, said that for those who feel, life is a tragedy, and a comedy for those who think. Very well then, if we are destined to end tragically, we Portuguese, we who feel, we would rather prefer this terrible, but noble destiny to that which is reserved, and perhaps at no very remote future date, for England, the country that thinks and calculates, whose destiny it is to finish miserably and comically." …we twin-brothers of the Atlantic seaboard have always been distinguished by a certain pedantry of feeling, but there remains a basis of truth underlying this terrible idea — namely that some peoples, those who put thought above feeling, I should say reason above faith, die comically, while those die tragically who put faith above reason.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

Life , People , Faith , Feeling

“The next question was — what makes planets go around the sun? At the time of Kepler some people answered this problem by saying that there were angels behind them beating their wings and pushing the planets around an orbit. As you will see, the answer is not very far from the truth. The only difference is that the angels sit in a different direction and their wings push inward.”

Richard Feynman book The Character of Physical Law

Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 1, “The Law of Gravitation,” p. 18: video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mhkYbznBk&t=17m10s

People , Angels , Question , Problem

“Make compassion the cotton, contentment the thread, modesty the knot and truth the twist.
This is the sacred thread of the soul; if you have it, then go ahead and put it on me.”

Nanak (1469–1539) Founder of Sikhism

Raag Aasaa 471:5383-4

Soul

“Wanna live in a place where the truth still finds a way to rise and advise.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

I Do
Anastacia (2004)

Way

“Like most people, I spent my childhood eating meat, wearing leather, and loving the cats, dogs, and mice I grew up with — and not once recognizing that I was treating some animals with respect and others as faceless commodities. I was well into adulthood before I understood that such an inconsistency is as ridiculous as it is unjust. The truth is, we have an impoverished understanding of the animals we share this planet with, and that has led to more than a little hubris on our part. … Humanity's abuse of animals can be merciless in the extreme, and in trying to relate such cruelties faithfully, I have written about incidents and industry practices that may disgust you. But it is crucial that we see beyond the veil that hides this world of suffering from us. Equally important, we need to know that there is some optimism amid all the despair. And so we begin with a story of hope.”

Mark Hawthorne (author) (1962) American activist

Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering (Changemakers Books, 2013), Introduction https://books.google.it/books?id=mXHvAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT15.

Love , People , World , Dogs

“As it saw in the Self all Godly attributes, it saw in Gods the truth and powers of the Self; indeed, it taught that one who worships a God as other than himself becomes his sacrificial animal, his draught-animal. He is driven and ridden by him.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Source: On Hinduism (2000)

God , Animals

“The ancient Greeks, as Plato reports, believed that we discover truth through "reminiscence," that is by "remembering," by intuitively searching into our own experience.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: Man’s Search for Himself (1953), p. 214

Search

“Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than our relation to a nonhuman power.”

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) American philosopher

"John Searle on Realism and Relativism." Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).

Religion

“It is not by these means [modern humanism and humanitarianism, idealism, etc. ] that humanity can get that radical change of its ways of life which is yet becoming imperative, but only by reaching the bed-rock of Reality behind,… not through mere ideas and mental formations, but by a change of the consciousness, an inner and spiritual conversion. But that is a truth for which it would be difficult to get a hearing in the present noise of all kinds of many-voiced clamour and confusion and catastrophe…. Science has missed something essential; it has seen and scrutinised what has happened and in a way how it has happened, but it has shut its eyes to something that made this impossible possible, something it is there to express. There is no fundamental significance in things if you miss the Divine Reality; for you remain embedded in a huge surface crust of manageable and utilisable appearance. It is the magic of the Magician you are trying to analyse, but only when you enter into the consciousness of the Magician himself can you begin to experience the true origination, significance and circles of the Lila…. Another danger may then arise [once materialism begins to give way]… not of a final denial of the Truth, but the repetition in old or new forms of a past mistake, on one side some revival of blind fanatical obscurantist sectarian religionism, on the other a stumbling into the pits and quagmires of the vitalistic occult and the pseudo-spiritual'mistakes that made the whole real strength of the materialistic attack on the past and its credos. But these are phantasms that meet us always on the border line or in the intervening country between the material darkness and the perfect Splendour. In spite of all, the victory of the supreme Light even in the darkened earth-consciousness stands as the one ultimate certitude….”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Undated
India's Rebirth

Life , Religion , Way , Idea

“All knowledge, not only that of the natural world, can be used for evil as well as good: and in all ages there continue to be people who think that its fruit should be forbidden. Does the future wlfare, therefore, of mankind depend of a refusal of science and a more intensive study of the Sermon on the Mount? There are others who hold the contray opinion, that more and more of science and its applications alone can bring prosperity and happiness to men. Both of these extremes views seem to me entirely wrong - though the second is the more perilous as more likely to be commonly accepted. The so-called conflict between science and religion is usually about words, too often the words of their unbalanced advocates: the reality lies somewhere in between. "Completeness and dignity", to use Tyndall's phrase, are brought to man by three main channels, first by the religiouos sentiment and its embodiment of ethical principles, secondly by the influence of what is beautiful in nature, human personality, or art, and thirdly, by the pursuit of scientific truth and its resolute use in improving human life. Some suppose that religion and beauty are incompatible: others, that the aesthetic has no relation to the scientific sense: both seem to me just as mistaken as those who hold that the scientific and the religious spirit are necessarily opposed. Co-operation is required, not conflict: for science can be used to express and apply the principles of ethics, and those principles themselves can guide the behaviour of scientific men: while the appreciation of what is good and beautiful can provide to both a vision of encouragement. Is there really then any special ethical dilemma which we scientific men, as distinct from other people, have to meet? I think not: unless it be to convince ourselves humbly that we are just like others in having moral issues to face. It is true that integrity of thought is the absolute condition of oour work, and that judgments of value must never be allowed to deflect our judgements of fact. But in this we are not unique. It is true that scientific research has opened up the possibility of unprecedented good, or unlimited harm, for manking: but the use is made of it depends in the end on the moral judgments of the whole community of men. It is totally impossible noew to reverse the process of discovery: it will certainly go on. To help to guide its use aright is not a scientific dilemma, but the honourable and compelling duty of a good citizen.”

Archibald Hill (1886–1977) English physiologist and biophysicist

The Ethical Dilemma Of Science, Hill, 1960. The Ethical Dilemma of Science and Other Writings https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=zaE1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Rockefeller Univ. Press, pp. 88-89

Life , Men , People , Age

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever it has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/4553, May 27, 1996.

Books , Universe

“Chesterton and Tolkien and Lewis were, as I’ve said, not the only writers I read between the ages of six and thirteen, but they were the authors I read over and over again; each of them played a part in building me. Without them, I cannot imagine that I would have become a writer, and certainly not a writer of fantastic fiction. I would not have understood that the best way to show people true things is from a direction that they had not imagined the truth coming, nor that the majesty and the magic of belief and dreams could be a vital part of life and of writing.
And without those three writers, I would not be here today. And nor, of course, would any of you. I thank you.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

"Mythcon 35 Guest of Honor Speech", in Mythprint (October 2004)

Life , People , Age , Dreams

“It is a little known fact that truth cannot be memorized. Truth has to be discovered now, from moment to moment. It is always fresh, always new, always there for the still, innocent mind that has experienced life without needing to hold on to what has gone before.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

Life

“They say that if you can stay away from bullfighting for a year you can stay away from it forever. That is not true but it has some truth in it and, except for fights in Mexico, I had been away for fourteen years. A lot of that time though was like being in jail except that I was locked out; not locked in.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Dangerous Summer (1985), Ch. 1

Time , Fight

“Do you like to see what can be transformed from a flat, elementary rural scene - bearing the stamp of nature, the mark of truth - into something most beautiful and graceful? Look at the works of our great [painter] Schelfhout. There you will find represented plain nature at the most elegant, but moreover with a faithfulness and truth, which only Schelfhout can represent.”

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands

(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) Wilt gij zien wat er van een vlak, eenvoudig landelijk tafereel, als hetzelve den stempel der natuur, het merk der waarheid draagt, schoons en bevalligs kan gemaakt worden? Beschouwt dan de werken van onze grooten Schelfhout. Daarin zult gij de eenvoudige natuur op het sierlijkst, maar tevens met eene getrouwheid en waarheid, wat alleen een Schelfhout vermag, voorgesteld vinden.
Source: Herinneringen aan en Mededeelingen van…' (1841), p. 243

Faith , Beauty , Nature

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

March 31, 1778, p. 372
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

World , Lying

“The fundamental truth about globalization — that it represents freedom for capital and unfreedom for labour — is especially clear where global migrants are concerned.”

David McNally (1953) Canadian political scientist

Source: Another World Is Possible : Globalization and Anti-capitalism (2002), Chapter 4, The Colour Of Money, p. 137

Freedom

“I know not whether, at the time, it was not for him rather than myself that I blushed; for, since he and I are one, I so identify myself with him, that I feel his degradation, his failings, and transgressions as my own; I blush for him, I fear for him; I repent for him, weep, pray, and feel for him as for myself; but I cannot act for him; and hence, I must be and I am, debased, contaminated by the union, both in my own eyes, and in the actual truth.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXX : Domestic Scenes; Helen Graham

Fear , Feeling , Time

“The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular, and even when, by the sheer strength of his case, he prevails, he is put down as a scoundrel.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Chicago Tribune (23 May 1926)
1920s

“All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody’s property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

Soul , Nature

“Nothing is more certain than that whatever has to court public favor for its support will sooner or later be prostituted to utilitarian ends. The educational institutions of the United States afford a striking demonstration of this truth. Virtually without exception, liberal education, that is to say, education centered about ideas and ideals, has fared best in those institutions which draw their income from private sources. They have been able … to insist that education be not entirely a means for breadwinning. This means that they have been relatively free to promote pure knowledge and the training of the mind. … In state institutions, always at the mercy of elected bodies and of the public generally, and under obligation to show practical fruits for their expenditure of money, the movement toward specialism and vocationalism has been irresistible. They have never been able to say that they will do what they will with their own because their own is not private. It seems fair to say that the opposite of the private is the prostitute.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), pp. 136-137.

Money , Education , Idea , Support

“Because God loves us, because He wants us to grow into truth, He must necessarily make demands on us and must also correct us”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

"Cardinal Ratzinger on Laicism and Sexual Ethics," Zenit.org, Nov. 19, 2004
2003

Love , God

“For life: It is rather a determination not to be overwhelmed. For work: The truth can only be recalled, never invented.”

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

Marilyn's personal diaries, as quoted in Fragments (2010), by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment

Life

“The dignity of truth is lost
With much protesting.”

Ben Jonson Catiline His Conspiracy

Catiline His Conspiracy (1611), Act III, scene ii

“Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

Source: The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. V.

Football

“Denial was a weapon; it killed truth, numbed the mind, and I was a junkie.”

John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 8.

“Not that an isolated occasion of saying the truth automatically leads to the disappearance of falsehood. Dharampal's famous book The Beautiful Tree completely demolished the myth that the Brahmins kept all the education for their own caste, and that Shudras were kept in darkness and illiteracy. Yet, the myth is still repeated… It is not enough to unearth the truth, it also has to be broadcast, and nobody should get away with pretending it isn't there.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Koenraad Elst, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)
1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

Books , Education , Beauty , Tree

“I find that to be a fool as to worldly wisdom, and to commit my cause to God, not fearing to offend men, who take offence at the simplicity of truth, is the only way to remain unmoved at the sentiments of others.”

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 36; as cited in: Ruth Marie Griffith (2008) American Religions: A Documentary History. p. 137

Wisdom , Men , God , Fear

“Our task then is always to challenge the apparent forms of reality—that is, the fixed meaning and values of the few—and to struggle with it until it reveals its mad, vari-implicated chaos, its false faces, and on until it surrenders its insight, its truth.”

Ralph Ellison (1914–1994) American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer

"Brave Words for a Startling Occasion" (1953), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 154.

Reality , Falseness , Madness

“Unskewed historical truth is the antechamber of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.”

Bruce Fein (1947) American lawyer

Lies, Damn Lies, and Armenian Deaths (2009)

“The truth is that the mathematical sciences are growing in complete security and harmony. The ideas of Dedekind, Poincare, and Hilbert have been systematically developed with great success, without any conflict in the results. It is only from the philosophical point of view that objections have been raised. They bear on certain ways of reasoning peculiar to analysis and set theory. These modes of reasoning were first systematically applied in giving a rigorous form to the methods of the calculus. [According to them, ] the objects of a theory are viewed as elements of a totality such that one can reason as follows: For each property expressible using the notions of the theory, it is [an] objectively determinate [fact] whether there is or there is not an element of the totality which possesses this property. Similarly, it follows from this point of view that either all the elements of a set possess a given property, or there is at least one element which does not possess it”

Paul Bernays (1888–1977) Swiss mathematician

Paul Bernays, Platonism in mathematics http://sites.google.com/site/ancientaroma2/book_platonism.pdf (1935)

Way , Mathematics , Idea , Science

“Wasn’t that their natural right, to know the truth so as to be able to let the truth lead them to do good or evil, as they chose?”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 17.

Nature , Evil

“It has been said that every great emerging scientific truth goes to three phases: First people say: "It can't be true". Second they say: "It conflicts with the bible." Third they say: "It's true all along."”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Climate Change Deniers from ALL IN with Chris Hayes, MSNBC and also in Bill Maher Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJhbQIlu4mk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klgp_qDiRhQ
2010s
Variant: It has been said that every great emerging scientific truth goes to three phases: First people say: «It can't be true». Second they say: «It conflicts with the bible.» Third they say: «It's true all along.»

People

“Between the one who counts the facts, grouped according to their resemblance, in order to know what to believe regarding the value of therapeutic agents and him who does not count but always says "more or less frequent," there is the difference between truth and error, between something that is clear and truly scientific and something that is vague and without value—for what place is there in Science for that which is vague?”

Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (1787–1872) French physician

Recherches sur les effets de la saignée dans quelques maladies inflammatoires, et sur l'action de l'émétique et des vésicatoires dans la pneumonie (1835) as quoted by William Coleman, Death is a Social Disease: Public Health and Political Economy in Early Industrial France (1982)

Error , Science

“Man has been called the reasoning animal but he could with greater truthfulness be called the creature of suggestion. He is reasonable, but he is to a greater extent suggestible.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: The Theory of Advertising, 1903, p. 59

Animals

“Utopias are often only premature truths.”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

Les utopies ne sont souvent que des verités prématurées.
Histoire des Girondins (1847), p. 322

“The old man … received the Sabbath with sweet song and chanted the hallowing tunefully over raisin wine; while it was still day he hallowed and the sun came to gaze at his glass. … The table was well spread with all manner of fruit, beans, greenstuffs and good pies, plum water tasting like wine, but of flesh and of fish there was never a sign. … in truth it is in no way obligatory to eat flesh and fish … He and she, meaning the old man and the old woman, had never tasted flesh since growing to maturity.”

Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888–1970) Israeli Hebrew writer, Nobel laureate in Literature

The Bridal Canopy https://books.google.it/books?id=wg4WAAAAMAAJ, translated by I. M. Lask, New York: Literary Guild of America, 1937, p. 222.

Way , Fish , Water , Wine

“The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction — a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory — who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

"The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics," Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html (11 December 1965)

Fashion , Chance

“Stop any person on the street and they will tell you their own version of what it means to be an American, perhaps accurately, but mostly not. Some might say that being an American means wearing the US flag as a lapel pin. Others might say that in order to be defined as an American, one must attend the right church and be the right type of Christian. Still others will tell you that supporting the troops and, above that even, supporting the President is what makes one American.

Some might even venture that being born in this country or of parents who are citizens of this country is surely enough. On this last point there is some truth, but only in terms of rights, not responsibilities. As such, it presents only half of the equation.”

Larisa Alexandrovna (1971) Ukrainian-American journalist, essayist, poet

What is an American? in You Are An American http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/you-are-an-american_b_5928.html.

Support , Parent , Personality , Country

“Science has always been in conflict with narratives. Judged by the yeardstick of science, the majority of them prove to be fables. But to the extend that science does not restrict itself to starting useful regularities and seeks truth, it is obliged to legitimate the rules of its own game.”

Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) French philosopher

The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1977) XXII

Game , Science

“Since there is no such thing as absolute rightness and truth, we always pursue the artificial, leading, human truth. We judge and make a truth that excludes other truths. Art plays a formative part in this manufacture of truth.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Notes, 1962; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Art' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/art-1
1960's

Art , Parting

“For 't is a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

The Retired Cat.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Light

“Great comedy is great comedy only if it has an element of truth in it.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

[Davis, E. Gene, Get 'Em Laughing: Public Speaking Humor, Quotes and Illustrations, Trafford Publishing, 2007-09-12, 68, 1425114334, 9781425114336]
Attributed

““Machines!” the Clerk said scornfully. “We have many of them, some exquisitely complex. But event the best of them are much like idiot savants. They do adequately on tedious straightforward tasks like building stars or destroying planets. But give them something tough, like solacing a widow, and they simply go to pieces. Would you believe it, the largest computer in our section can landscape an entire planet; but it cannot fry an egg or carry a tune, and it knows less about ethics than a newborn wolf cub. Would you want something like that to run your life?”
“Of course not,” Carmody said. “But couldn’t someone build a machine with creativity and judgment?”
“Someone has,” the Clerk said. “It has been designed to learn from experience, which means that it must make errors in order to arrive at truths. It comes in many shapes and sizes, most of them quite portable. Its flaws are readily apparent, but seem to exist as necessary counterweights to it virtues. No one has yet improved on the basic design, though many have tried. This ingenious device is called ‘intelligent life.’””

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 3 (pp. 25-26)

Life , Error , Star , Intelligence

“No radiant angel came across the gloom with a clear message for her. In those times, as now, there were human beings who never saw angels or heard perfectly clear messages. Such truth as came to them was brought confusedly in the voices and deeds of men not at all like the seraphs of unfailing wing and piercing vision—men who believed falsities as well as truths, and did the wrong as well as the right. The helping hands stretched out to them were the hands of men who stumbled and often saw dimly, so that these beings unvisited by angels had no other choice than to grasp that stumbling guidance along the path of reliance and action which is the path of life, or else to pause in loneliness and disbelief, which is no path, but the arrest of inaction and death.”

George Eliot book Romola

Volume II, Chapter XVI
Romola (1863)

Life , Death , Men , Angels

“The truth is whatever people will believe is the truth. Don't you know history?”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

People , History

“Any one who is much talked of, must be much maligned. This seems to be a harsh conclusion; but when you consider how much more given men are to depreciate than to appreciate, you will acknowledge that there is some truth in the saying.”

Arthur Helps (1813–1875) British writer

Source: Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. (1871), p. 6

Men

“The Pharisees were orthodox Jews, deeply concerned with the affairs of the Church and conscientious observers of all its ceremonies. They held its chief offices, occupied the chief places at the feasts, and sat in the chief seats in the synagogues…. Who then could have been more astonished than they when, like a thunderbolt from the sky, came the simplest, clearest, most concise and yet complete statement of fundamental religious truth that has ever been uttered? In twenty-eight words Jesus stated for all time and in a manner that may be understood by everybody, the fundamental basis of Christianity—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all mind… And Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 92-93

Love , God , Soul , Time

“Composing a score is like getting in one of those mini-submarines that take you to the bottom of the ocean. You crawl into this little bubble, seal yourself away from the outside world and dive deep into uncharted territory. Sometimes the places you explore are dark, sometimes they’re light. If you have the right tools and knowledge you can explore wherever you like and have a great experience. It’s a crude analogy to genre hopping, but it’s accurate. I was lucky as a kid to be exposed to so much different material. I watched cartoons and read all kinds of comics as much as I buried my head in scary stuff. It makes going from talking animals one day to shape-shifters the next pretty easy. Truth is, most composers are pinballs. They can bounce around from style to style and adapt really well.”

Michael Wandmacher (1967) composer

Michael Wandmacher (‘The Last Exorcism II’) On Composing Horror http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3233495/interview-michael-wandmacher-the-last-exorcism-ii-on-composing-horror/ (May 17, 2013)

World , Knowledge , Light , Reading

“The first duty of a government is to be true to itself. This does not mean perfection, it means a plan to strive for perfection. It means loyalty to ideals. The ideals of America were set out in the Declaration of Independence and adopted in the Constitution. They did not represent perfection at hand, but perfection found. The fundamental principle was freedom. The fathers knew that this was not yet apprehended. They formed a government firm in the faith that it was ever to press toward this high mark. In selfishness, in greed, in lust for gain, it turned aside. Enslaving others, it became itself enslaved. Bondage in one part consumed freedom in all parts. The government of the fathers, ceasing to be true to itself, was perishing. Five score and ten years ago, that divine providence which infinite repetition has made only the more a miracle, sent into the world a new life destined to save a nation. No star, no sign foretold his coming. About his cradle all was poor and mean, save only the source of all great men, the love of a wonderful woman. When she faded away in his tender years from her deathbed in humble poverty, she endowed her son with greatness. There can be no proper observance of a birthday which forgets the mother. Into his origin, as into his life, men long have looked and wondered. In wisdom great, but in humility greater, in justice strong, but in compassion stronger, he became a leader of men by being a follower of the truth. He overcame evil with good. His presence filled the nation. He broke the might of oppression. He restored a race to its birthright.”

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

1920s, Duty of Government (1920)

Love , Life , Wisdom , Men

Quotes about the truth page 35

Quotes about the truth
page 35