Quotes about the truth
page 65

“A man well-known to be a liar had just told a most improbable story. “Sir, while I believe you,” someone said, “you must admit that it's very wrong of truth not to condescend to be more plausible.””

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter I, Money, p. 5

Money, Study

“The Avatar is always one and the same, because God is always One and the Same, the Eternal, Indivisible, Infinite One, who manifests Himself in the form of man as the Avatar, as the Messiah, as the Prophet, as the Ancient One — the Highest of the High. This Eternally One and the Same Avatar repeats His manifestation from time to time, in different cycles, adopting different human forms and different names, in different places, to reveal Truth in different garbs and different languages, in order to raise humanity from the pit of ignorance and help free it from the bondage of delusions.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

The Highest of the High (1953)

God, Time, Help

“I do not pretend that I know the whole solution of the world's problems, but I am burdened with a Puritanical sense of obligation to set the world to rights. I feel responsible for many enterprises that are not really my business at all, but many times I have kept silence on issues that interested me deeply through the fear that others would be blamed for my opinions. I have never been willing to believe that human nature cannot be changed; but even if it cannot, I am sure it can be curbed and led into channels of usefulness. I believe that life, not wealth, is the aim of existence — life including all its attributes of love, happiness, and joyful labour. I believe war is the inevitable fruit of our economic system, but even if I am wrong I believe that truth can lose nothing by agitation but may gain all.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Midstream (1929)

Love, Life, War, World

“Under the plan of heaven, the husband and the wife walk side by side as companions, neither one ahead of the other, but a daughter of God and a son of God walking side by side. Let your families be families of love and peace and happiness. Gather your children around you and have your family home evenings, teach your children the ways of the Lord, read to them from the scriptures, and let them come to know the great truths of the eternal gospel as set forth in these words of the Almighty.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Selections from Addresses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Mar. 2001, 64.

Love, God, Children, Family

“In the stupendous rush of change which is coming on the human world as a result of the present tornado of upheaval, ancient India's culture, attacked by European modernism, overpowered in the material field, betrayed by the indifference of her children, may perish for ever along with the soul of the nation that holds it in its keeping…. Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies. India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception, and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence…. To follow a law or principle involuntarily or ignorantly or contrary to the truth of one's consciousness is a falsehood and a self-destruction. To allow oneself to be killed, like the lamb attacked by the wolf, brings no growth, farthers no development, assures no spiritual merit. Concert or unity may come in good time, but it must be an underlying unity with a free differentiation, not a swallowing up of one by another or an incongruous and inharmonious mixture. Nor can it come before the world is ready for these greater things. To lay down one's arms in a state of war is to invite destruction and it can serve no compensating spiritual purpose…. India is indeed awaking and defending herself, but not sufficiently and not with the whole-heartedness, the clear sight and the firm resolution which can alone save her from the peril. Today it is close; let her choose,… for the choice is imperatively before her, to live or to perish.”

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

December, 1918
India's Rebirth

War, Children, World, Law

“If there was in all France, between 1140 and 1200, a more typical Englishman of the future Church of England type than John of Salisbury, he has left no trace; and John wrote a description of his time which makes a picturesque contrast with the picture painted by Abélard, his old master, of the century at its beginning. John weighed Abélard and the Schools against Bernard and the Cloister, and coolly concluded that the way to truth lay rather through Citeaux, which brought him to Chartres as Bishop in 1176, and to a mild scepticism in faith. "I prefer to doubt," he said, "rather than rashly define what is hidden."”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

School, Faith, Way, Time

“Truth is buried, deep inside of men, sweep away each day.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"The Last Tea Song"
Blue Walls and The Big Sky (1995)

Men

“Such men and women are not confined to any one country or to any one period. They are in the great tradition of humanism. Their work is as typical of the social heritage of the twentieth century as the work of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci was typical of the Renaissance. That heritage can neither be understood nor preserved, unless it is seen as the unified gift of many minds bearing on every aspect of life which has engaged man's long search for goodness, beauty and truth.”

Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983) British management consultant

Vol II. p. 18as cited in: Hopf (1947).
1940s, The Making Of Scientific Management, 1945

Life, Women, Men, Beauty

“The non-violent resistors can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly and cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of non-violence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it.”

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

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)
Variant: The non-violent resistors can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly and cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of non-violence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it.

Peace, Law, Communication, Failure

“And took for truth the test of ridicule.”

George Crabbe (1754–1832) English poet, surgeon, and clergyman

Book viii, "The Sisters".
Tales of the Hall (1819)

“Banda Singh was impelled by the purest of motives in consecrating himself for the liberation and independence of his people and was an embodiment of selflessness. He always lived up to the principles: ‘Wishing the advancement of the Panth, walking in the path of dharma, fearing sin, living up to truth,’ as enjoined by Guru Govind Singh, who never considered lying, intrigue and treachery as part and parcel of politics.”

Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716) Sikh military commander

Life Of Banda Singh Bahadur Based On Contemporary And Original Records Dr. Ganda Singh" https://archive.org/stream/LifeOfBandaSinghBahadurBasedOnContemporaryAndOriginalRecordsDr.GandaSingh/Life+of+Banda+Singh+Bahadur+Based+on+Contemporary+and+Original+Records+-+Dr.+Ganda+Singh_djvu.txt

People, Fear, Lying, Motivation

“Thy letter hath been perused. Were the truth of this Revelation to be fully demonstrated with elaborate proofs, all the scrolls that exist in the heaven and on the earth would be insufficient to contain them.
However, the substance and essence of the subject is this, that there can be no doubt that from everlasting God hath been invested with the independent sovereignty of His exalted Being, and unto everlasting He will remain inaccessible in the transcendent majesty of His holy Essence. No creature hath ever recognized Him as befitteth His recognition, nor hath any created being ever praised Him as is worthy of His praise. He is exalted above every name, and is sanctified from every comparison. Through Him all things are made known, while too lofty is His reality to be known through anyone but Him. The process of His creation hath had no beginning and can have no end, otherwise it would necessitate the cessation of His celestial grace. God hath raised up Prophets and revealed Books as numerous as the creatures of the world, and will continue to do so to everlasting.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Dalá’Il-I-Sab‘ih

God, Books, World, Reality

“I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.
None of us know the truth of the situation and I’m sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.”

Rose McGowan (1973) American actress

5:46am https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1031477689947967489 and 9:35am https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1031535197433602048 20 August 2018 reaction to accusations against Asia Argento according to Deadline https://deadline.com/2018/08/rose-mcgowan-asia-argento-jimmy-bennett-heart-broken-sexual-assault-payoff-report-reaction-1202448340/, E! https://www.eonline.com/ca/news/961510/rose-mcgowan-reacts-to-asia-argento-reportedly-paying-off-sexual-assault-accuser, Entertainment Weekly https://ew.com/movies/2018/08/20/rose-mcgowan-asia-argento/, Variety https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/rose-mcgowan-asia-argento-sexual-assault-accusation-1202909955/ and Vulture http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/rose-mcgowan-responds-to-asia-argento-assault-allegations.html.

Pain, Heart

“The supremacy of expediency is being refuted by time and truth. Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man's power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5

Time

“If all men, by the act of being born, are destined to suffer violence, that is a truth to which the empire of circumstances closes their minds.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Si tous sont destinés en naissant à souffrir la violence, c'est là une vérité à laquelle l'empire des circonstances ferme les esprits des hommes.
in The Simone Weil Reader, p. 163
Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Iliad or The Poem of Force (1940-1941)

Men, Suffering

“What was the truth for the painters of yesterday is but a falsehood today. We declare, for instance, that a portrait must not like the sitter... To paint a human figure, you must not paint it; you must render its surrounding [aura-like] atmosphere. Space no longer exists... Who can still believe in the opacity of bodies, since our sharpened and multiplied sensibilities has already penetrated the obscure manifestations of mediums? Why should we forget in our creations the doubled power of our sight, capable of giving analogous to those of X-rays?”

Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916) Italian painter and sculptor

As quoted in: John F. Moffitt (2003) Alchemist of the Avant-Garde: The Case of Marcel Duchamp, p. 87.
1910, Manifesto of Futurist Painters,' April 1910

Painting, Forgetting

“Love is not always evil, truth to tell;
Though harm he does, he serves the good as well.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Dunque Amor sempre rio non si ritrova:
Se spesso nuoce, anco talvolta giova.
Canto XXV, stanza 2 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Love, Evil

“Rid yourself of secular prejudice. For instance, those with the 'Women's Liberation' mentality believe that the biblical husband-wife relationship is one of a master and a well-trained dog. They couldn't be further from the truth. The Bible does not speak of women as the 'weaker vessel,' which is true physically. However, the biblical order is: as a strong thorny stem upholds the tender, easily bruised, sweet-smelling rose, so should the husband uphold, love, and respect his wife.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Love, Women, Dogs, Strong

“I knew as well as anyone that the priests taught what they wanted us to know, not necessarily what was true. And sometimes even when they told the truth, they got it wrong.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 5 “Family” (charcoal study) (p. 120)

“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Actually said by Thomas Cooper, a U.S. politician.
Misattributed

Fraud

“Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

My Religion (1884), Ch. 12

Men, Error, Communication

“Truth, as ever, avoids the stranger.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, City of Illusions (1967), Chapter 1

“Complete honesty has nothing to do with "purity" or naivety. The full truth is unattainable to naivety, and the completely honest artist is not pure in heart.”

Clement Greenberg (1909–1994) American writer and artist

"Partisan Review 'Art Chronicle': 1952" (1952), p. 146
1960s, Art and Culture: Critical Essays, (1961)

Heart, Naivety

“The roar of the.45 shook the room. Charlotte staggered back a step. Her eyes were a symphony of incredulity, an unbelieving witness to truth. Slowly, she looked down at the ugly swelling in her naked belly where the bullet went in.
"How c-could you?" she gasped.
I had only a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in.
"It was easy," I said.”

Mickey Spillane book I, the Jury

I, the Jury (1947)

“The truth is that other systems of geometry are possible, yet after all, these other systems are not spaces but other methods of space measurements. There is one space only, though we may conceive of many different manifolds, which are contrivances or ideal constructions invented for the purpose of determining space.”

Paul Carus (1852–1919) American philosopher

Science, Vol. 18 (1903), p. 106, as reported in Memorabilia Mathematica; or, The Philomath's Quotation-Book https://archive.org/stream/memorabiliamathe00moriiala#page/81/mode/2up, (1914), by Robert Edouard Moritz, p. 352

“True heroism is alike positive and progressive. It sees in right the duty which should dominate, and in truth the principle which should prevail. And hence it never falters in the faith that always and everywhere sin must be repressed, and righteousness exalted.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 312.

Faith

“Closest to the truth are those who deal lightly with it because they know it is inexhaustible.”

Golo Mann (1909–1994) German historian

Golo Mann. Thomas Mann and His Family, cited in: Robert Andrews (2003), The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations. p. 1137.

“By these things my Mind was now so turned that it lay like a Horse-leech at the Vein, still crying out, Give give, yea, it was so fixed on Eternity, and on the things about the Kingdom of Heaven (that is, so far as I knew, though as yet… I knew but little); that neither Pleasures, nor Profits, nor Persuasions, nor Threats, could loosen it, or make it let go his Hold. …it is in very deed a certain Truth, it would then have been as difficult for me to have taken my mind from Heaven to Earth, as I have found it often since to get it again from Earth to Heaven.”

John Bunyan book Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666)

Pleasure, Horse, Cry

“There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

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

Letter to Henry Lee (15 May 1826)
1820s

World, Fear

“‘Truth is cheap, but information costs.’ I can’t remember who said that.”
“Vince What’s-His-Name,” said Sam. “Died in a terrorist raid or something. I thought you said all information should be free.”
“It should. It isn’t. Knowledge is power. But power corrupts. Which means the Age of Fast Information is an extremely corrupt age in which to live.”

Pat Cadigan book Synners

“Aren’t they all?” Sam asked him.
Source: Synners (1991), Chapter 5 (pp. 52-53)

Age, Knowledge

“The things that are most important to me in such a project are perfectionism and truth. Truth of interpretation, truth of sound, truth of the instrument, truth of the hall, truth lastly of all.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

This means ‘Artistic Integrity’ to me.
Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

“Truth in all its kinds is most difficult to win; and truth in medicine is the most difficult of all.”

Peter Mere Latham (1789–1875) English physician and educator

Book I, p. 60.
Collected Works

“If you seek just a little truth, as most, you should not ignore abstract forms, the basis from which all short-lived experiences we call reality springs.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Direct Art Magazine, "In Memoriam - Eugene James Martin", Fall-Winter 2006, Vol. 13, p. 87; also http://www.artnet.com/awc/eugene-j-martin.html and http://morayeel.louisiana.edu/ejMARTIN/ejMARTIN-artist.html

Spring, Reality

“Divine religion … does not prod men with an iron rod; it guides them with bands of love. It draws no avenging sword, dispenses no temporal goods, assumes no right to any earthly possessions, and claims no external power over the mind. Its weapons are reason and persuasion; its strength is the divine power of truth.”

Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) German Jewish philosopher and theologian

Source: Jerusalem, or on Religious Power and Judaism (1783), p. 73

Love, Men, Religion, Drawing

“And we learn this truth from His sight: That all we taste, in comparison with that which remains out of our reach, Is no more than a single drop of water compared with the whole sea…. We hunger for God’s Infinity, which we cannot devour, And we aspire to His Eternity, which we cannot attain…. In this storm of love, our activity is above reason and is in no wise. Love desires that which is impossible to her; And reason teaches that love is within her rights, but can neither counsel nor persuade her.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

Love, Hunger, God, Learning

“The facts of the matter are (that) I did not do any of the things of which I was accused by paid witnesses. But having said that, I'm not sitting here today pleading for the world to believe me because I've come to God. He knows what's in my heart; he knows the truth of the matter. And the witnesses who lied do as well.”

Jani Allan (1952) South African columnist and broadcaster

Speaking in 1995 in an SABC interview about witnesses in her libel case against Channel 4. http://70.84.171.10/~etools/newsbrief/1995/news0103 Other

God, World, Heart

“Men are not ‘born entitled to equal right! It would be far nearer the truth to say, ‘that some were born with saddles on their backs, and others booted and spurred to ride them’—and the riding does them good.”

George Fitzhugh (1806–1881) American activist

Source: Sociology For The South: Or The Failure Of A Free Society (1854), p. 179

Men

“Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.”

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

C 33
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)

Age

“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”

Thomas Cooper (U.S. politician)

Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, 1831.

Fraud

“In Plato's Republic, when the interlocutor of Socrates appears to bring certain plausible reasons to bear upon the mathematical sciences, to show that they are useful to human life, arithmetic for reckoning, distributions, contributions, exchanges, and partnerships, geometry for sieges, the founding of cities and sanctuaries, and the partition of land, music for festivals, entertainment, and the worship of the gods, and the doctrine of the spheres, or astronomy, for farming, navigation and other undertakings, revealing beforehand the proper procedure and suitable season, Socrates, reproaching him says: "You amuse me, because you seem to fear that these are useless studies that I recommend; but that is very difficult, nay, impossible. For the eye of the soul, blinded and buried by other pursuits, is rekindled and aroused again by these and these alone, and it is better that this be saved than thousands of bodily eyes, for by it alone is the truth of the universe beheld."”

Nicomachus (60–120) Ancient Greek mathematician

Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)

Life, God, Fear, Music

“I've lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth — That God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that except the Lord build the House they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this, — and I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our Projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and Bye word down to future Ages.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Speech to the Constitutional Convention (28 June 1787); Manuscript notes by Franklin preserved in the Library of Congress http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/vc006642.jpg Constitutional Convention of 1787

Men, God, Age, Time

“It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists present their truths. It is often complained that demagogues can be more plausible in putting forward economic nonsense from the platform than the honest men who try to show what is wrong with it. But the basic reason for this ought not to be mysterious. The reason is that the demagogues and bad economists are presenting half-truths. They are speaking only of the immediate effect of a proposed policy or its effect upon a single group. As far as they go they may often be right. In these cases the answer consists in showing that the proposed policy would also have longer and less desirable effects, or that it could benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The answer consists in supplementing and correcting the half-truth with the other half. But to consider all the chief effects of a proposed course on everybody often requires a long, complicated, and dull chain of reasoning. Most of the audience finds this chain of reasoning difficult to follow and soon becomes bored and inattentive. The bad economists rationalize this intellectual debility and laziness by assuring the audience that it need not even attempt to follow the reasoning or judge it on its merits because it is only “classicism” or “laissez-faire,” or “capitalist apologetics” or whatever other term of abuse may happen to strike them as effective.”

Henry Hazlitt book Economics in One Lesson

Economics in One Lesson (1946), The Lesson (ch. 1)

Men, Error

“What do you gain in heaven? You become gods, drink nectar, and get rheumatism. There is less misery there than on earth, but also less truth.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

God, Drink

“The statute in question cannot be justified by reason of the fact that the publisher is permitted to show, before injunction issues, that the matter published is true and is published with good motives and for justifiable ends. If such a statute, authorizing suppression and injunction on such a basis, is constitutionally valid, it would be equally permissible for the legislature to provide that at any time the publisher of any newspaper could be brought before a court, or even an administrative officer (as the constitutional protection may not be regarded as resting on mere procedural details) and required to produce proof of the truth of his publication, or of what he intended to publish, and of his motives, or stand enjoined. If this can be done, the legislature may provide machinery for determining in the complete exercise of its discretion what are justifiable ends, and restrain publication accordingly. And it would be but a step to a complete system of censorship.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Exercises, Motivation, Question, Time

“Ambedkar traces Buddha's rational approach, which he values so much, to Kapila, the founder of the Samkhya-Darshana, the 'viewpoint' focusing on cosmology: 'Among the ancient philosophers of India the most preeminent was Kapila (') The tenets of his philosophy were of a startling nature. Truth must be supported by proof. This is the first tenet of the Samkhya system. There is no truth without proof. For purposes of proving the truth Kapila allowed only two means of proof-1) perception, and 2) inference.”

Kapila Vedic sage, of the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy

Dr. Ambedkar: The Buddha and his Dhamma, book 1, part 5, para 2, in Writings and Speeches, vol.11, p.83-87. Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743

Support, Nature

“I have pledged loyalty to the Constitution of India…it is the constitution of a new state, enacted by independent citizens for the first time in the history of the country. Ours is a young and new state, though it represents an ancient community that has sought to attain eternal, constant values over the centuries with the help and cooperation of other communities and its own unique style… Our past is neither static nor dead. Rather, it is a living and dynamic entity. It has its bearings upon our present and helps us in constructing our future…I perceive it clearly that education should play an important role in the renewing our past. I firmly adhere to the truth that education is the real means for realizing national objectives. The essential features of a nation are determined by its educational plans”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

In his a first address on 13 May 1967 as as President of India delivered in the central hall of the Parliament, in: p. 337.
Quest for Truth (1999)

Education, History, Communication, Time

“There is no tariff so injurious as that with which sectarian bigotry guards its commodities. It dwarfs the soul by shutting out truths from other continents of thought, and checks the circulation of its own.”

Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880) American priest

Source: Living Words (1869), P. 231.

Soul

“We must be careful to discriminate between our own incapacity to test truth and the necessary improbability of an event. It is plain that from our ignorance of the remote spheres of God's action we cannot judge of His works removed from our experience; but a fact is not necessarily doubtful because it cannot be reached by our ordinary senses. To recapitulate, we may lay down the following propositions:
1. That there is no real physical distinction between miracles and any other operations of the Divine energy : that we regard them differently is because we are familiar with one order of events and not the other.
2. There is nothing incredible in a miracle, and the credibility of a miraculous event is to be measured only by the evidence which sustains it. And although the extraordinary character of a phenomenon may render the event itself improbable, it does not, therefore, necessarily render it either incredible or untrue.”

Charles Babbage Passages from the life of a philosopher

"Passages from the life of a philosopher", Appendix, p. 489
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

God, Sense

“You live in a land that is compassionate and decent. Because we believe in the rights and dignity of our own citizenry, we are committed to defending the rights and dignity of people everywhere. America has liberated millions around the world from tyranny and terror. We’ve helped turn the tide against deadly disease in places like Africa. In our hearts we believe all are created equal under God. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is Almighty God’s gift to humanity. At home, there are thousands of platoons in the Army of compassion working to honor those beliefs. No matter what your career path, enlist. When you help another, you enrich your heart, and you strengthen the fabric of our collective goodness. Many of you have already made service a priority in your lives by volunteering during winter, spring, and summer breaks; and completing more than one-hundred community projects through Engaged Learning. I thank you for recognizing the timeless truth: of those to whom much is given, much is required.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

God, People, World, Disease

“Science leads to great achievements, which, quite rightly, fill of joy those who seek the truth, but if pursued, teaches us that we must seek other sources of ultimate truth and find answers to existential questions about the meaning of life and the mystery of death.”

Franco Bassani (1929–2008) Italian physicist

La scienza conduce a grandi conquiste, che, giustamente, colmano di gioia chi cerca la verità, ma, se approfondita, ci insegna che in altre fonti occorre cercare la verità ultima e trovare le risposte alle domande esistenziali sul senso della vita e sul mistero della morte.
Knowing the universe. For whom? at the XXVII edition of the “Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples”, Rimini meeting 2006, August 23, 2006.

Life, Death, Question, Science

“Who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth.”

Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to Timothy

1 Timothy 2:4 (as quoted in World English Bible http://biblehub.com/web/1_timothy/2.htm) First Epistle to Timothy

People, Knowledge

“Knowing something may be a terrible burden to bear, but it holds no danger to them as aren’t afraid of truth.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 4 “La Tia” (p. 72).

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. the truth is WWE Universe loves John Morrison”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

http://www.wwe.com/content/media/video/vms/judgmentday/2009/may15-21/10229280

Love, Universe, Sun

“My conclusion is that contrary to popular belief, atheism is not primarily an intellectual revolt, it is a moral revolt. Atheists don't find God invisible so much as objectionable. They aren't adjusting their desires to the truth, but rather the truth to fit their desires. […] This is the perennial appeal of atheism: it gets rid of the stern fellow with the long beard and liberates us for the pleasures of sin and depravity. The atheist seeks to get rid of moral judgment by getting rid of the judge.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, What's So Great about Christianity (2007), Ch. 23

God, Pleasure

“Seldom can philosophic genius be more usefully employed than in thus rescuing admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.”

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

Aids to Reflection (1873), Aphorism 1

Universe

“God presents himself in the inmost depths of my soul. I understand not only that he is present, but also how he is present in every creature and in everything that has being, in a devil and a good angel, in heaven and hell, in good deeds and in adultery or homicide, in all things, finally, which exist or have some degree of being, whether beautiful or ugly. She further said: I also understand that he is no less present in a devil than a good angel. Therefore, while I am in this truth, I take no less delight in seeing or understanding his presence in a devil or in an act of adultery than I do in a good angel or in a good deed. This mode of divine presence in my soul has become almost habitual. Moreover, this mode of God's presence illuminates my soul with such great truth and bestows on it such divine graces that when my soul is in this mode it cannot commit any offense, and it receives an abundance of divine gifts. Because of this understanding of God's presence my soul is greatly humiliated and ashamed of its sins. It is also granted deep wisdom, great divine consolation, and joy.”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

Source: The Memorial and Instructions, pp. 212-213

Wisdom, God, Beauty, Angels

“Some say the Internet is for porn; but you know that in truth the Internet is for spam. As communication technologies got cheaper, the cost of grabbing a megaphone and jamming it up against the aching ear-drums of an advertising-jaded public collapsed: Meanwhile, the content-is-king mantra of the monetization mavens gridlocked the new media in an advertising-supported business model. The great and the good of the Academy have been fighting a losing battle against the Anglo-Saxon hucksterization model for the past thirty years: But the sad truth is that the battle’s lost. The tide of war was turned in Beijing and New Delhi, when the rapidly industrializing new superpowers climbed on the MAKE MONEY FAST band-wagon and gave free rein to the free market, red in tooth and claw—just as long as the sharp bits were directed outwards. And today the entire world is still drowning in a sea of attention-grabbing unregulated unethical untruthful spamvertising.”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 13, “Kemal: Spamcop” (pp. 154-155)

Money, War, World, Sadness

“It is far from the truth to say that the rebellion was a communal riot, that the objective of the rebels was the destruction of Hindu religion and that the six months of rebellion were six months of anti-Hindu atrocities… All this, however, does not mean that religious fanaticism was totally absent in the rebellion. The numbers of forced conversions which did take place cannot by any stretch of imagination be explained by any other motive than religious fanaticism… One can and should, however, state explicitly that the main force behind the rebellion was not fanaticism which was simply a by-product…”

E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1909–1998) Indian politician

On the issue of the Malabar rebellion
EMS as a historian

Religion, Imagination, Communication, Motivation

“Barelvi’s confidence in a jihad against the British collapsed when he surveyed the extent and the magnitude of British power in India. He did the next best under the circumstances, and declared a jihad against the Sikh power in the Punjab, Kashmir and the North-West Frontier. The British on their part welcomed this change and permitted Barelvi to travel towards the border of Afghanistan at a leisurely pace, collecting money and manpower along the way. It was during this journey that Barelvi stayed with or met several Hindu princes, feigned that his fulminations against the Sikhs were a fake, and that he was going out of India in order to establish a base for fighting against the British. It is surmised that some Hindu princes took him at his word, and gave him financial help. To the Muslim princes, however, he told the truth, namely, that he was up against the Sikhs because they “do not allow the call to prayer from mosques and the killing of cows.”
Barelvi set up his base in the North-West Frontier near Afghanistan. The active assistance he expected from the Afghan king did not materialise because that country was in a mess at that time. But the British connived at the constant flow not only of a sizable manpower but also of a lot of finance. Muslim magnates in India were helping him to the hilt. His basic strategy was to conquer Kashmir before launching his major offensive against the Punjab. But he met with very little success in that direction in spite of several attempts. Finally, he met his Waterloo in 1831 when the Sikhs under Kunwar Sher Singh stormed his citadel at Balakot. The great mujahid fell in the very first battle he ever fought. His corpse along with that of his second in command was burnt, and the ashes were scattered in the winds. Muslims hail him as a shahid.”

Syed Ahmad Barelvi (1786–1831) Muslim activist

Goel, S. R. (1995). Muslim separatism: Causes and consequences.

Money, Way, Travel, Confidence

“Here you are, put this somewhere, on your work table. You must always have this before your eyes... It's a new order of painting. Our Renaissance starts here... There's a pictorial truth in things. This rose and this white lead us to it by a path hitherto unknown to our sensibility..”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Cezanne is referring in this quote to a photo of the painting 'Olypmpia', painted by Manet
Source: Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900, Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906), p. 71, in: 'What I know or have seen of his life'

Painting

“If Benton had had an administration building with pillars it could have carved over the pillars: Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you guilty.”

Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution

Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 5, p. 220

“[S]cience is often regarded as the most objective and truth-directed of human enterprises, and since direct observation is supposed to be the favored route to factuality, many people equate respectable science with visual scrutiny—just the facts ma'am, and palpably before my eyes. But science is a battery of observational and inferential methods, all directed to the testing of propositions that can, in principle, be definitely proven false. […] At all scales, from smallest to largest, quickest to slowest, many well-documented conclusions of science lie beyond the strictly limited domain of direct observation. No one has ever seen an electron or a black hole, the events of a picosecond or a geological eon.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

"Muller Bros. Moving & Storage", pp. 200–201
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

People, Lie, Science, Falseness

“The historian…loaden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself (for the most part) upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay; having much ado to accord differing writers and to pick truth out of partiality; better acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and yet better knowing how this world goeth than how his own wit runneth; curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties; a wonder to young folks and a tyrant in table talk, denieth, in a great chafe, that any man for teaching of virtue, and virtuous actions is comparable to him.”

Philip Sidney (1554–1586) English diplomat

Page 89.
An Apology of Poetry, or The Defence of Poesy (1595)

Age, World, History, Parting

“The Lord is the refuge of all who seek refuge, the saviour of all who have to be saved. He is the Embodiment of Being-Awareness-Bliss (Sat-chit-ananda). He is now at Puttaparthi as the Effulgent Emperor over the region of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 13, p 114

Beauty

“Lower a bucket into a well of self-deception, and what comes up must be immortal truth, mustn't it?”

Charles Reade book The Cloister and the Hearth

Source: The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), CHAPTER V

“Richard Croker used to say that tellin’ the truth and stickin’ to his friends was the political leader’s stock in trade. p. 35”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 8, Ingratitude in Politics

“Charles Darwin, the Abraham of scientific men — a searcher as obedient to the command of truth as was the patriarch to the command of God.”

John Tyndall (1820–1893) British scientist

Science and Man.
Fragments of Science, Vol. II (1879)

Men, God

“It is ugly ducklings, grown either into swans or into remarkably big, remarkably ugly ducks, who are responsible for most works of art; and yet how few of these give a truthful account of what it was like to be an ugly duckling!—it is almost as if the grown, successful swan had repressed most of the memories of the duckling’s miserable, embarrassing, magical beginnings. (The memories are deeply humiliating in two ways: they remind the adult that he was once more ignorant and gullible and emotional than he is; and they remind him that he once was, potentially, far more than he is.)”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“An Unread Book”, p. 19
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Art, Way, Memory, Success

“I grew up very Christian … My family are still very Christian. I am in no way disrespecting them when I say this: it was overbearing. I believed I was touched by Jesus, and I prayed all the time. I was still very Christian when I left the Marines. I would tell everyone about Jesus — it was almost evangelical. I thought all the good things in my life were because of my faith.
When I came back from expeditions, I had some experiences that made me readdress all that. I'd pretty much known all along that Christianity wasn't for me. Ever since then, I've been on my own quest to find another truth. I can't read novels, but I do read books about cosmology, about astrophysics, about genetics. I'm interested in altered states of mind, and creation myths. It's all part of the same thing — I want to know why we think what we think. Now, I'd describe myself as pan-deist, reluctantly verging on atheist.”

Bruce Parry (1969) British documentarian

As quoted in "Bruce almighty: What drives Tribe's presenter-explorer Bruce Parry?" by Ed Caesar in The Independent (11 August 2007) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/bruce-almighty-what-drives-tribes-presenterexplorer-bruce-parry-461007.html

Life, Books, Family, Faith

“Another workingman named Bóndaref, was also of immense practical help to Tolstoy, chiefly through his remarkable book "Industry and Idleness.".. Bóndaref insists that the "chief, primary, and most immutable" law for humanity is that every man must earn his own bread with his own hands. "Bread labor," as thus understood, includes all heavy rough work necessary to save man from death by hunger and cold and this bread includes, of course, food, drink, clothes, shelter, and fuel…. As the world has rarely heard such teachings since the days of the Apostles and the early Christian Fathers, Tolstoy seemed to consider Bóndaref as the discoverer of a new truth which he eagerly accepted as fundamental to a just life…. he emphasized the point that children must he taught above all things to do hard productive labor. They must be taught to be ashamed from the very beginning to use, and profit by, the labor of others.”

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

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 24-25

Life, Death, Hunger, Children

“It is a great truth, wonderful as it is undeniable, that all our happiness—temporal, spiritual, and eternal — consists in one thing; namely, in resigning ourselves to God, and in leaving ourselves with Him, to do with us and in us just as He pleases.”

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) French mystic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 297.

God, Happiness

“Of war and peace the truth just twist, its curfew gull it glides.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Gates of Eden

War, Peace

“The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

The Last Years of a Rebel (1967)

“Media manipulation is commonplace. For people who do not look outside their comfort zone, they will never learn the whole truth. If scientists had not challenged the status quo, we would not have enjoyed modern medicine and technological innovations today.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

People, Learning

“Truth is really whatever can be shown to correspond to reality. Truth is what the facts are essentially. Facts are after all points of data that you can verify to be accurate. A lot of people hate these definitions because it completely undermines their theology. They can’t make the assertions that they want to by saying anything is the absolute truth, because under the definition of either word no you don’t!”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Exclusive Interview with Aron Ra – Public Speaker, Atheist Vlogger, and Activist https://conatusnews.com/interview-aron-ra-past-president-atheist-alliance-america/, Conatus News (May 17, 2017)

Hate, People, Reality

“The future of marketing belongs to honest information, accurate data and clear claims based on truth.”

Patrick Dixon book Building a Better Business

Building a Better Business (2005)

Future

“Now will I, in my old way, discover the whole and real truth of the matter to him, that he may not suspect one word on’t.
No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise.”

William Congreve The Double Dealer

Act V, scene iv
The Double Dealer (1694)

Way

“… in truth Publius Scipio was one, who was himself enthusiastic, and who inspired enthusiasm. He was not one of the few who by their energy and iron will constrain the world to adopt, and to move in, new paths for centuries, or who grasp the reins of destiny for years till its wheels roll over them…. a wide interval separates such a man from an Alexander or a Caesar. As an officer, he rendered at least no greater service to his country than Marcus Marcellus; and as a politician, although not perhaps himself fully conscious of the unpatriotic and personal character of his policy, he injured hi country at least as much, as he benefited it by his military skill.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History Of Rome, Volume 2. Chapter 6. Translated by W.P.Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 2

World, Personality, Country

“Infinite love is the only truth. Everything else is illusion.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

Variant: Infinite love is the only truth. Everything else is illusion.
Source: Davidicke.com

Love

“[T]he Christian philosopher of to-day has larger capacities and fuller knowledge than the Israelite of the time of Moses. What the one accepted as literal truth the other cannot accept save as a myth or figure. The children of Israel received without idealisation the statements of their great lawgiver. To them the tables of the law were true tablets of stone, prepared, engraved, broken, and re-engraved; while the graving tool which thus inscribed the law was held undoubtingly to be the finger of God. To us such conceptions are impossible. We may by habit use the words, but we attach to them no definite meaning.”

John Tyndall (1820–1893) British scientist

p, 125
New Fragments (1892)

God, Children, Law, Knowledge

“… The answer to this problem is: as implied by Hume, we certainly are not justified in reasoning from an instance to the truth of the corresponding law. But to this negative result a second result, equally negative, may be added: we are justified in reasoning from a counterinstance to the falsity of the corresponding universal law (that is, of any law of which it is a counterinstance). Or in other words, from a purely logical point of view, the acceptance of one counterinstance to 'All swans are white' implies the falsity of the law 'All swans are white' - that law, that is, whose counterinstance we accepted. Induction is logically invalid; but refutation or falsification is a logically valid way of arguing from a single counterinstance to - or, rather, against - the corresponding law. This shows that I continue to agree with Hume's negative logical result; but I extend it. This logical situation is completely independent of any question of whether we would, in practice, accept a single counterinstance - for example, a solitary black swan - in refutation of a so far highly successful law. I do not suggest that we would necessarily be so easily satisfied; we might well suspect that the black specimen before us was not a swan.”

Karl Popper book The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Source: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Ch. 1 "A Survey of Some Fundamental Problems", Section I: The Problem of Induction http://dieoff.org/page126.htm p. 27

Law, Way, Question, Problem

“I am speaking in dead earnest, before God. God's own truth. It has the violence of robbery, the blood and cruelty of piracy. It has the offensive and brutal lusts of polygamy, all combined and concentrated in itself, with aggravations that neither one of these crimes ever knew or dreamed of.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838&ndash;64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA192 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 193 1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

God, Dreams, Dead

“Profound as race prejudice is against the Negro American, it is not practically as far-reaching as the prejudice against women. For stripping away the sentimentality which makes Mother’s Day and Best American Mother Contests, the truth is that women suffer all the effects of a minority.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Of Men and Women (1941), Ch. 8

Women, Suffering

“There is an inward state of the heart which makes truth credible the moment it is stated. It is credible to some men because of what they are. Love is credible to a loving heart; purity is credible to a pure mind; life is credible to a spirit in which life beats strongly — it is incredible to other men.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 605.

Love, Life, Men, Heart

“The reason of a commandment, whether positive or negative, is clear, and its usefulness evident, if it directly tends to remove injustice, or to teach good conduct that furthers the well-being of society, or to impart a truth which ought to be believed either on its own merit or as being indispensable for facilitating the removal of injustice or the teaching of good morals. There is no occasion to ask for the object of such commandments; for no one can, e. g., be in doubt as to the reason why we have been commanded to believe that God is one; why we are forbidden to murder, steal, and to take vengeance, or to retaliate, or why we are commanded to love one another. But there are precepts concerning which people are in doubt, and of divided opinions, some believing they are mere commands, and serve no purpose whatever, whilst others believe that they serve a certain purpose, which, however is unknown to man. Such are those precepts which in their literal meaning do not seem to further any of the three above-named results: to impart some truth, to teach some moral, or to remove injustice. They do not seem to have any influence upon the well-being of the soul by imparting any truth, or upon the well-being of the body by suggesting such ways and rules as are useful in the government of a state, or in the management of a household. …I will show that all these and similar laws must have some bearing upon one of the following three things, viz., the regulation of our opinions, or the improvement of our social relations, which implies two things, the removal of injustice, and the teaching of good morals.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.28

Love, God, People, Law

Cyril Connolly book Enemies of Promise

Source: Enemies of Promise (1938), Part 2: The Charlock’s Shade, Ch. 15: The Slimy Mallows (p. 122-123)

Death, Hope, Way, Silence

“He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all.
Our forefathers threw off the yoke of Popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Speech in Philadelphia (1776)

Men, Religion, Happiness

“You don't hear any more of, 'Hey, we did something creative and we turned a profit, how about that?' Everywhere we look, we want to make the most money possible. This is a dangerous, corrupt notion. That's where you see the advent of programming on the radio, and radio research, all these silly things. That has made pop music what it is today. Everything — morals, truth — is all going out the window in favor of profit.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Rolling Stone interview (2002)

Money, Music

“Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 179.

Fools

“I would waste my rhetoric if I tried, for men are greedy and will not see the truth for the gleam of coin.”

Michael Moorcock book The Mad God's Amulet

Book 1, Chapter 5 “The Machine” (p. 160)
The Mad God's Amulet (1968)

Men

“The recognition of the light of reality within the darkness of abstraction is a contradiction – both the affirmation and the negation of the real at one and the same time. The new philosophy, which thinks the concrete not in an abstract but a concrete way, which acknowledges the real in its reality – that is, in a way corresponding to the being of the real as true, which elevates it into the principle and object of philosophy – is consequently the truth of the Hegelian philosophy, indeed of modern philosophy as a whole.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Part III, Section 31 Principles of Philosophy of the Future http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/future/index.htm (1843)

Way, Thinking, Reality, Light

“Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: "There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land" (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man.”

Pope Pius X (1835–1914) Catholic Pope and saint

Statement prior to World War I, quoted in Biographical profile at Living Water Community http://livingwatercommunity.com/saiints/st%20Pius%20X.htm, and partially in A Treasury of Saints : 100 Saints : Their Lives and Times (2002) by Malcolm Day, and St. Mary's Catholic Church, Dubai http://www.saintmarysdubai.com/stoftheday.asp?id=184

God, Peace, Knowledge, Evil

“Christ is the chief object proposed to the sinner in the New Testament. The eye that sweeps round the whole circle of Divine truth must rest in Him as the centre.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 64.

Christ

“There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.”

John Ruskin book Modern Painters

Volume III, part IV, chapter VII (1856).
Modern Painters (1843-1860)

Pain

“The superstition that the hounds of truth will rout the vermin of error seems, like a fragment of Victorian lace, quaint, but too brittle to be lifted out of the showcase.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

National Review, 16 January 1962 http://books.google.com/books?id=TjkQAAAAIAAJ&q=%22The+superstition+that+the+hounds+of+truth+will+rout+the+vermin+of+error+seems+like+a+fragment+of+Victorian+lace+quaint+but+too+brittle+to+be+lifted+out+of+the+showcase%22&pg=PA21#v=onepage

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