“Man is a mimic animal, happiest acting a part, needing a mask to tell the truth.”
The Prajna Sutra (2007)
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Subhash Kak 28
Indian computer scientist 1947Related quotes
“I'm crazy enough to believe that the happiest man on earth is the man with the fewest needs.”
Source: The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) Part 2, p. 133
“Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”
Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1824), ch. XVI
“The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.”
“To tell the truth, to arrive together at the truth, is a communist and revolutionary act.”
Letter from Prison (21 June 1919), translated by Hamish Henderson, Edinburgh University Student Publications.
“Animals for the most part just need to be left alone.”
"Wayne Pacelle works for the winged, finned and furry," 2008
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
No source for this quote among Orwell's writings has yet been located, and the earliest published source of this phrase found on Google Books is this snippet https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=kWD0AAAAMAAJ&q=%22truth+is+a+revolutionary+act%22&dq=%22truth+is+a+revolutionary+act%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs0MKSqpbKAhWH0iYKHXj6ABUQ6AEIJjAD from p. 5 of Science Dimension, Volumes 14–18 (1982) published by the National Research Council Canada. Quote Investigator has an article "In a Time of Universal Deceit – Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/24/truth-revolutionary/ indicating their attempts to trace the quote. The earliest similar remarks they had found were in a 1982 book titled “Partners in Ecocide: Australia’s Complicity in the Uranium Cartel” by Venturino Giorgio Venturini, where the word “universal” was omitted, and a specific originating text was not identified: "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
Variants:
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.
Truth is treason in an empire of lies. (Often attributed by Ron Paul to Orwell but never sourced.)
In the mid-19th century Karl Georg von Raumer made a remark, which has a similar meaning. In Geschichte der Pedagogic (1855), he states: 'Jede keimende Wahrheit ist revolutionär gegen den entgegenstehenden herrschenden Irrthum, jede keimende Tugend revolutionär gegen das im Schwange gehende, ihr widersprechende Laster' which translates as: "Every germinating truth is revolutionary against the opposing ruling error, every germinating virtue is revolutionary against popular contradictory lies."
In 1898 French socialist Jean Jaurès said, "When a society, when an institution, lives only by lies, truth is revolutionary." He was speaking with reference to the ongoing Dreyfus Affair. The statement is quoted in Ruth Harris, The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France (2010), p. 262. (She cites Le petit Meridional, 3 July 1898, as the original source.) This seems very close in spirit and in phrasing to the pseudo-Orwell quotation. (The cumulative index to the many volumes of Orwell's writing compiled and edited by Peter Davison does not reveal any direct references to Jaurès or the Dreyfus Affair.)
Disputed
Variant: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
“There is no safe standard to tell man from animals.”
Ibid., p. 150
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Não há critério seguro para distinguir o homem dos animais.