“The great enemy of integrity is not falsehood as such but … the attractiveness of foreign truths, truths that belong to others.”

— David L. Norton

Source: Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (1976), p. 9

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David L. Norton 13

American philosopher 1930–1995

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Must We Go to War? (1937)

“Cling to truth and it turns into falsehood. Understand falsehood and it turns into truth.”

Ryōkan (1758–1831) Japanese Buddhist monk

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 way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Mike Wallace interview (4 November 1958), quoted in The Great Quotations (1966) by George Seldes
Other speeches and writings

“The proximity between the counterfeit and the good coin does not make the good coin counterfeit nor the counterfeit good. In the same way the proximity between truth and falsehood does not make truth falsehood nor falsehood truth.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307

“Though Truth and Falsehood be
Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Satyre III (c. 1598)

“But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

“BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.”

Bernard Crick (1929–2008) British political theorist and democratic socialist

Source: In Defence Of Politics (Second Edition) – 1981, Chapter 1, The Nature Of Political Rule, p. 15.

“Einstein’s great friend and intellectual sparring partner Niels Bohr had a nuanced view of truth. Whereas according to Bohr, the opposite of a simple truth is a falsehood, the opposite of a deep truth is another deep truth. In that spirit, let us introduce the concept of a deep falsehood, whose opposite is likewise a deep falsehood. It seems fitting to conclude this essay with an epigram that, paired with the one we started with, gives a nice example: “Naïveté is doing the same thing over and over, and always expecting the same result.””

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Einstein’s Parable of Quantum Insanity (2015)

“An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World Revisited

Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 11 (p. 104)

“Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

L’ Envoi

“The great enemy of integrity is not falsehood as such but … the attractiveness of foreign truths, truths that belong to others.”

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David L. Norton 13

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