“All of us live by the employment of countless untested assumptions, the truth or falsehood of which we can determine only through the hazard of our lives. Since most of us value our lives more than the truth, we leave such drastic tests for the fanatics.”

“The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth.”

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;”

“Most of us live our lives by accident—we live as it happens. Fullfillment comes when we live our lives on purpose.”

“The Masters of the secret teachings say that the truth learned from another is of no value, and that the only truth which is living and effective, which is of value, is the truth which we ourselves discover.”

“Truth cannot be constructed. To live in ideology is, as Havel so eloquently reminds us, inevitably to live in a lie. Truth can only be revealed. We cannot be creators, only receptors.”

“Isn't this the truth of any good mother? That in all of our lives. We worry only about those we brought into this world, regardless of whether they loved us back or treated us fairly or understood our shortcomings.”

“Since I wasn’t able to leave a succession of beautiful lies, I want to leave the smidgen of truth that the falsehood of everything lets us suppose we can tell.”

“Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.”

“we have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood”