“Though Truth and Falsehood be
Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is.”
Satyre III (c. 1598)
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John Donne 115
English poet 1572–1631Related quotes

“Cling to truth and it turns into falsehood. Understand falsehood and it turns into truth.”
As translated in 1,001 Pearls of Wisdom (2006) by David Ross, p. 36
Context: Cling to truth and it turns into falsehood. Understand falsehood and it turns into truth. Truth and falsehood are two sides of the same coin. Neither accept one nor reject the other.

The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307
Source: Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (1976), p. 9

“Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.”

“An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood.”
Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 11 (p. 104)

“Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.”
L’ Envoi

“Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult.”
Adam Bede (1859)
Context: These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people — amongst whom your life is passed — that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire — for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience. And I would not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields — on the real breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice.
So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity, which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread. Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin — the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings — much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it”
The Examiner No. XIV (Thursday, November 9th, 1710)
Context: Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.