“He who, when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling.”

— Johann Kaspar Lavater

No. 302
Aphorisms on Man (c. 1788)

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Johann Kaspar Lavater 24

Swiss poet 1741–1801

Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Source: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

“So as the water nibbled away at our land, the war nibbled away at our souls.”

Katherine Paterson (1932) American children's writer born and mainly raised in China

«Иакова Я возлюбил»

“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

“As he lay on Wenlock Edge, with the sheep nibbling the grass close about him as they or their betters had nibbled the grass — or whatever there was to nibble — in the Silurian kingdom of Pteraspis, he seemed to have fallen on an evolution far more wonderful than that of fishes. He did not like it; he could not account for it; and he determined to stop it. Never since the days of his Limulus ancestry had any of his ascendants thought thus. Their modes of thought might be many, but their thought was one. Out of his millions of millions of ancestors, back to the Cambrian mollusks, every one had probably lived and died in the illusion of Truths which did not amuse him, and which had never changed. Henry Adams was the first in an infinite series to discover and admit to himself that he really did not care whether truth was, or was not, true. He did not even care that it should be proved true, unless the process were new and amusing. He was a Darwinian for fun.

From the beginning of history, this attitude had been branded as criminal — worse than crime — sacrilege! Society punished it ferociously and justly, in self-defence.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

“Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he, "That when they speak truth they are not believed."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Aristotle, 9.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics

“The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978

“Holden yelled in frustration. The universe kept waiting until he was thoroughly beaten, then tossing him a nibble of hope only to yank it away again.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Abaddon's Gate (2013), Chapter 50 (p. 509)

“Truth is so large OR people’s minds are so small that they’re only able to nibble on the edges – and when growth brings them to the area where they can feed on truth itself, as they move in and eat of the seed, there they become truth.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

“…when General Eisenhower defined an intellectual as “a man who takes more words than is necessary to tell more than he knows”, he was speaking not as a Republican but as an American.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Intellectual in America”, p. 5
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

“Who was it who said that a wise man speaks when he has something to say, but a fool speaks because he must?”

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City

Source: Chasm City (2001), Chapter 12 (p. 197).

“He who, when called upon to speak a disagreeable truth, tells it boldly and has done is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low voice and never ceases nibbling.”

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Johann Kaspar Lavater 24

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