“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world.”

Source: East of Eden

It (1986)

in the Holocaust
Source: [Satloff, Robert, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach Into Arab lands, PublicAffairs, 2007, 163, 9781586485108]
Source: [Laqueur, Walter, The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, 2006, 141, 9780195304299]

Variant: To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.

Nobel lecture (1970)

Song lyrics, The Essential Bob Dylan (2000), Things Have Changed (recorded 1999)

From 1980s onwards, Norie Huddle interview (1981)
Context: There is more recognition now that things are changing, but not because there is a political move to do it. It is simply a result of the information being there. Our survival won’t depend on political or economic systems. It’s going to depend on the courage of the individual to speak the truth, and to speak it lovingly and not destructively. It’s saying what you really know and feel is the truth, in all directions. Our greatest vulnerability lies in the amount of misinformation and misconditioning of humanity. I’ve found the educations systems are full of it. You have to examine each word and ask yourself, "Is that the right word for that?" — the integrity and the courage of the individual to speak his own truth and not to go along with the crowd, yet not making others seem ignorant. After a while, if enough human beings are doing it, then everybody will start going in the right direction.

Source: The Red Pyramid