Quotes about the truth
page 65

Meher Baba photo
Helen Keller photo
Gordon B. Hinckley photo
Sri Aurobindo photo

“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

Henry Adams photo

“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)

Lyndall Urwick photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“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.

George Crabbe photo

“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 Bahadur photo

“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

Báb photo
Rose McGowan photo

“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.

Abraham Joshua Heschel photo
Simone Weil photo

“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)

Umberto Boccioni photo
Ludovico Ariosto photo

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

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

Ray Comfort photo
N. K. Jemisin photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“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

Leo Tolstoy photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“Truth, as ever, avoids the stranger.”

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)

Mickey Spillane photo
Paul Carus photo

“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

Golo Mann photo

“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.

John Bunyan photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“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

Pat Cadigan photo
Burkard Schliessmann photo
Peter Mere Latham photo

“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

Eugene J. Martin photo

“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

Moses Mendelssohn photo
John Ruysbroeck photo
Jani Allan photo
George Fitzhugh photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“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)

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

Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, 1831.

Nicomachus photo
Benjamin Franklin photo
Henry Hazlitt photo

“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.”

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

Swami Vivekananda photo
Charles Evans Hughes photo
Kapila photo
Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
Edwin Hubbell Chapin photo
Charles Babbage photo
George W. Bush photo
Franco Bassani photo

“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.

Paul of Tarsus photo

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

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

Orson Scott Card photo

“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).

John Hennigan photo

“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

Dinesh D'Souza photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Angela of Foligno photo
Charles Stross photo
E. M. S. Namboodiripad photo
Syed Ahmad Barelvi photo

“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.

Paul Cézanne photo

“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'

Philip Sidney photo
Sathya Sai Baba photo
Charles Reade photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo

“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

John Tyndall photo

“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)

Bruce Parry photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon photo
Bob Dylan photo

“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

Edith Sitwell photo
Newton Lee photo
Aron Ra photo

“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)

Patrick Dixon photo
William Congreve photo
Theodor Mommsen photo
David Icke photo

“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

John Tyndall photo
Karl Popper photo

“… 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.”

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

Owen Lovejoy photo

“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, 1838–64 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)

Pearl S.  Buck photo
Frederick William Robertson photo
Maimónides photo

“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.”

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

Cyril Connolly photo
Samuel Adams photo
Tom Petty photo
Oliver Goldsmith photo
Michael Moorcock photo

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

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

Ludwig Feuerbach photo
Pope Pius X photo

“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

John Angell James photo

“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.

John Ruskin photo
William F. Buckley Jr. photo

“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

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo
Anne Brontë photo
Nakayama Miki photo
Antonio Gramsci photo