“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.”
Source: The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects (1964)
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Alexandra David-Néel5
French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist and writ… 1868–1969Related quotes
Martin Cecil, 7th Marquess of Exeter (1909–1988) Marquess of Exeter
As of a Trumpet, 1968, p. 43
As of a Trumpet
“Shameful it is to say, yet the common herd, if only we admit the truth, value friendships by their profit.”
Turpe quidem dictu, sed, si modo vera fatemur,
vulgus amicitias utilitate probat.
Ovid book Epistulae ex Ponto
II, iii, 7-8; translation by Arthur Leslie Wheeler
Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters From the Black Sea)
“We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.”
John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 273
“In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Nuns Fret Not, l. 8 (1806).
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
Source: The Name of the Rose (Everyman's Library

“Truth is a liberal value, and it is a conservative value, but it is not a leftist value.”
Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian
Source: 2010s, Why Most Jews Aren't Bothered By The Times' Anti-Semitic Cartoon (2019)
“…In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.”
Dan Brown book Angels & Demons
Source: Angels & Demons
Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Section III, Chap. I.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part II
Henry Codman Potter (1835–1908) Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York
Address at the Washington Centennial Service in St. Paul's Chapel, New York, April 30, 1889.