“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

— Oscar Wilde

The Portrait of Mr. W. H. http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/portrait/wh01.html (1889)

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Oscar Wilde 812

Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

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“Just because a man has died for it, does not make it true.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant.”

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

V, 6
Variation on the middle sentence: A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
Variation on the middle sentence: A thing is not necessarily false because it is badly expressed, nor true because it is expressed magnificently.
Confessions (c. 397)
Context: Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant. Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like town-made or rustic vessels — both kinds of food may be served in either kind of dish.

“Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T true is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“There is no Heaven, no Swarga, no Hell, no rebirth, no reincarnation and no immortality. The only thing that is true is that a man is born, he lives and he dies. Therefore, he should live his life properly.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

In a public lecture at Bangalore in 1934, from [Singh, R, 2010, Letters to the Editor: Indian scientists vs. science and religion, http://www.scienceandculture-isna.org/july-aug10/Letter%20to%20editors.pdf, Science and Culture, 76, 7-8, 206]

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

11
Writing for the Theatre (1962)

“Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“When a man is ill it is not necessarily because he wants to be ill subconsciously. It is not necessarily because he is receiving some hidden psychological benefit, or because the illness fulfills some need. He is ill often - always in fact - because of a distortion that is occurring within the self, and materialized in physical form.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 297, Page 136
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 7

“A Conformist is a man who declares, "It's true because others believe it" - but an Individualist is NOT a man who declares, "It's true because I believe it."
An Individual declares, "I believe it because I see in reason that it is true.”

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

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism

“That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)
Context: That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.

“It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Costly Grace, p. 45.
Context: Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

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