False

“ I do not ask you to believe me simply on my word—though he who has not been found false has a claim to be believed—but to judge for yourselves of these truths from facts within the view and scrutiny of you all. ”

“ Men have denounced it and demonstrated that it is false both in history and science; then, unexpectedly, the stroke of a pick or the turn of a shovel uncovers some startling witness of its exact truth and the excuseless folly of those who deny it. ”

“ No matter how glaringly absurd, how palpably erroneous, or how demonstrably false an opinion or doctrine is shown to be, they cannot see it, but will still continue to hug it to their bosoms as a divinely-revealed truth. ”

“ For who, indeed, shall define the standard of reality? And who, when the senses are such sorry reporters, shall declare with authority that one thing is false and could not happen, and another is true and actually did happen? ”

“ In itself, a false statement, though generally acquiesced in, may be unimportant; in its consequences, it may be widely and permanently prejudicial to the cause of truth. If viewed abstractedly, it might appear like a cloud in the horizon not larger than a man's hand ”

“ And if one says that all is false, that assertion is itself false. If we declare that solely the assertion opposed to ours is false or else that solely ours is not false, we are nevertheless forced to admit an infinite number of true or false judgments. ”

“ For oaths are th' only tests and seals
Of right and wrong, and true and false,
And there's no other way to try
The doubts of law and justice by.
(Quoth she) What is it you would swear 235
There's no believing till I hear
For, till they're understood all tales
(Like nonsense) are not true nor false. ”

“ Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back. ”

“ When a simple, honest hearted man, sent of God with the truth to the world, shall question the most learned upholders of false theories, the gilding falls off, and falsehood, in all its deformity, stands naked and exposed. ”

“ A true and a false tiding jostled in their way out, and after some jangling for precedency, agreed to fly together. Since which time, no lie is without some truth, and no truth without some falsehood. ”

“ For truth or falsehood lying always in some affirmation or negation, mental or verbal, our ideas are not capable, any of them, of being false, till the mind passes some judgment on them; that is, affirms or denies something of them. ”

“ What does it matter how you build, if you have bad bricks to build with; or how you reason, if every idea with which you begin is foul or false? And in general all fatal false reasoning proceeds from people’s having some one false notion in their hearts, with which they are resolved that their reasoning shall comply. ”

“ Those things that are false, and designed to impose upon men, commonly appear best when they are judged of according to the outward appearance, they appear most plausible prima facie—at the first glance. ”

“ Take heed, lest by nice and subtle sophistry you burthen your knowing soul, or knowingly burthen your soul, with the guilt of advancing a false title, or of maintaining, by specious fallacies, a claim which, if shown in its native and true colours, would appear to be false. ”

“ Then receiving that as a truth which every mind affirms—it can not suppose the contrary of it to be true—we must set down every thing as false which conflicts with this proposition, no matter whether it overthrows authority or not. ”

“ But blame the false, and value still the true.
Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading notion of the Town;
[145] They reason and conclude by precedent,
And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent. ”

“ When a person says what is false and is convinced that all who hear him know it is false, the contradiction between his mind and its expression is said to be material, and not formal; and in this the essence of a lie does not consist. ”

“ False priests, false prophets, false doctors, false patriots, false prodigies of every kind, veiling their proceeding in mystery, have always addressed themselves at an immense advantage to the popular credulity, and have been, perhaps, more indebted to that resource in gaining and keeping for a time the upper hand of Truth and Common Sense, than to any half dozen items in the whole catalogue of imposture. ”

“ But what? They call knowledge good, and error evil; so that even in regard to what is false there arises a good, that is, the knowledge that the false is false. So it ought to be, then, also with our life. ”

“ For True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error there may be, as when we expect that which shall not be, or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth. ”

“ To make the truth appear where it seems hid,
And hide the false seems true. ”

“ We find every day all sorts of false and calumnious statements, circulated without a particle of proof, in the books, the periodicals, and newspapers of the land, against the persons and the doctrines we hold most dear. ”

“ He places all our judgments of things in our senses; and if they are once led to approve of anything false as if it were true, then he thinks that there is an end to all our power of distinguishing between truth and falsehood. ”

“ Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct. ”

“ Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and dismissing the supposition that any of the received opinions may be false, let us assume them to be true, and examine into the worth of the manner in which they are likely to be held, when their truth is not freely and openly canvassed. ”

“ I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result. ”

“ To this they all agreed, and search was made; and soon they found Falsehood, whom they instantly tore to pieces, coiled up her bowels into knots, burnt her, and dispersed her ashes to the winds. But even her dust was so malignant that it was carried all over the world; and that is the reason that wherever men exist there Falsehood must be. ”

“ The statement itself being published, reveals a state of mind which warrants one in saying, and compels one to say, that the statement is false; because there is an avowal of falsehood, and a disposition to profit by it. ”

“ It is not right that they be exploited and deceived with false views of life, false characters, false sentiment, false morality, false history, false philosophy, false emotions, false heroism, false notions of self-sacrifice, false views of religion, of duty, of conduct, and of manners. ”

“ but to be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false, this is the mark and character of intelligence." ”

“ A thing is probable, when we have a variety of motives for believing it true, without, however, being able to bring any proof. Again, we call false, that which is in positive contradiction to all our notions, our reason, and our experience. ”

“ All the same, we cannot for that reason say that falsehood is a moment or forms even a constituent part of truth. That “in every case of falsity there is something true” is an expression in which they are taken to be like oil and water, which do not mix and are merely united externally. Just in the interest of their real meaning, precisely because we want to designate the aspect or moment of complete otherness, the terms true and false must no longer be used where their otherness has been cancelled and superseded. ”

“ As for the separation of truth from falsehood, and the resemblance which truth has with falsehood, and for the distinction between what is consistent and what is absurd, on both sides, a balance ought to be formed in which every thing may be weighed. ”

“ What do we mean by truth and falsehood? It is this preliminary question which is to be considered in this chapter. In this chapter we are not asking how we can know whether a belief is true or false: we are asking what is meant by the question whether a belief is true or false. ”

“ Truth or falsehood always supposes affirmation or negation. Though, in compliance with the ordinary way of speaking, I have shown in what sense and upon what ground our ideas may be sometimes called true or false ; yet if we will look a little nearer into the matter, in all cases where any idea is called true or false, it is from some judgment that the mind makes, or is supposed to make, that is true or false. ”

“ Those bright spells which blind, and the darkness which also blinds. Falsehood rules with those who rule, effacing Resemblance everywhere, and everywhere creating Difference.
Nowhere can one turn aside from falsehood. ”

“ This above all,—To thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. ”

“ How baseless are the structures of falsehood, which we build in opposition to the system of eternal nature! If I should escape undetected from this recess, it will be true that I never saw the face of either of these persons, and yet I am acquainted with the most secret transaction of their lives. ”

“ All neither wholly false, nor wholly true. ”

“ The fact exists, and your neighbors seem to believe it true; and whether true or false, the consequences will be the same, unless you can, by your conduct and arguments, convince them of your innocence. ”

“ These things if we shall answer to be false, we shall be thought impudently to contradict the writings of certain faithful men, and the senses of them who assure us that such things have happened to themselves. ”

“ On the one hand, it is absurd to suppose that the temple of truth could be erected on the quagmire and morass of falsehood—impossible to believe that the one system in the world of mind which has attracted the true to its allegiance, and been the stimulus of truth-seeking throughout the ages, can have originated in a tissue of deliberate falsehoods. ”

“ Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are of ill report; if there be any vice, and if there be any shame—they think on these things. ”

“ And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated falsehood. ”