“The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.”
Unsourced variant: A truth that disheartens because it is true is of more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.
Wisdom and Destiny (1898)
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Maurice Maeterlinck 21
Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist 1862–1949Related quotes
Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume I, (1999), p. 19
"Plutarch's Lives," Vol 1, Barnes & Noble Inc., 2006, Lysander p. 646
Translation from Greek originalː "τὸ ἀληθὲς οὐ φύσει τοῦ ψεύδους κρεῖττον ἡγούμενος, ἀλλ' ἑκατέρου τῇ χρείᾳ τὴν τιμὴν ὁρίζων."
The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307
“The only activities of true value are those which aim at inner transformation.”
Inspire Yourself
Letter to Robert Wilberforce (Rome, 15 February 1848); in Edmund Sheridan Purcell, Life of Cardinal Manning, Vol. I (London: Macmillan and Co., 1896), p. 513.
Source: Nietzsche (1946), pp. 187-188
Context: For any community and those living in it, only that is true which can be communicated to all. Hence universal communicability is unconsciously accepted as the source and criterion of those truths that promote life through communal means. Truth is that which our conventional social code accepts as effective in promoting the purposes of the group. … This community will condemn as a “liar” the person who misuses its unconsciously accepted, and therefore valid, metaphors. … Community members are obliged to “lie” in accordance with fixed convention. To put it otherwise, they must be truthful by playing with the conventionally marked dice. To fail to pay in the coin of the realm is to tell forbidden lies, for, on this view, whatever transcends conventional truth is a falsehood. To tell lies of this kind is to sacrifice the world of meanings upon which the endurance of his community rests. Conversely, there are forbidden truths: This same threat to the continuance of the community is also counteracted by relentlessly preventing anyone from thinking and uttering unconventional but authentic truths.
Chap. 2 : Experience and Its Modes
Experience and Its Modes (1933)
“The truth, or rather, reality is far from any human can ever reach.”