Falsity

“ In his choice of material the sophisticated writer selects what is false—not, like that occasional genius, for some other reason than its falsity, or for no reason at all, but precisely because it is false, and therefore sure of an easy effect. ”

“ “The often ridiculed consequence of these opinions is that they destroy themselves. For by asserting that all is true we assert the truth of the contrary assertion and consequently the falsity of our own thesis (for the contrary assertion does not admit that it can be true) . 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. ”

“ In the agreement or disagreement of its sense with reality, its truth or falsity consists. ”

“ When then any man assents to that which is false, be assured that he did not intend to assent to it as false, for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, as Plato says; but the falsity seemed to him to be true. ”

“ I suppose the writer of the Handbill thought that by throwing this paragraph into the form of an insinuation, and not a positive assertion, he would escape from being branded with the charge of Falsehood, but surely he cannot be ignorant of the fact, that to deceive by the insinuation of a Falsehood is as great a breach of Truth, as to deceive by an actual falsehood itself. ”

“ I say that no person is willing in his own mind to receive or to assert a falsehood, to be ignorant, to be in error, to possess that which is not true. This is truly to be called falsehood, this ignorance and error in the mind itself. What is usually called falsehood, or deceit in words, is but a voluntary imitation of what the mind itself suffers in the involuntary possession of that falsehood, an image of later birth, and scarcely, in a strict and complete sense, deserving the name of falsehood.—Lib. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Will he come to the consideration of the question impartially, indifferently, and without any wrong bias, or give the painful and revolting truth the same cordial welcome as the long-cherished and favourite prejudice? To say that the truth or falsehood of a proposition is the only circumstance that gains it admittance into the mind, independently of the pleasure or pain it affords us, is itself an assertion made in pure caprice or desperation. ”

“ That which, of itself, is fallible and liable to err, can not determine the quality of infallibility; and whenever an individual affirms, upon some authority, the truth of any thing which, by his acknowledgment, lies beyond the plane of his intellectual development, he asserts something unphilosophical and false. That is only truth which, in our minds, corresponds to the actuality. It matters not who speaks, even though it be God; just so long as you must depend upon your understanding to interpret the meaning of what is said, you are liable to get a falsehood instead of truth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are some people so naïve in their interpretation of expressed judgments as to suppose that what is told them must be either truth or falsehood, not being able to distinguish a fallacy from a lie. ”

“ I say to a degree, for I may as well tell you right here that falsehood is unknown, or, more correctly stated, impossible in the land of the Transparent Folk, for the reason that so wondrously clear, limpid, and crystal-like are, their eyes that the slightest attempt to say one thing while they are thinking another roils and clouds them as if a drop of milk had fallen into a glass of the purest water. ”

“ For if you mix what is false with what is true, falsehood often imitates the truth by treading in its steps. Just in the same way a picture imitates the true man of nature, depicting with its colors the false resemblance of truth. ”

“ Falsehood may come draped in the appearance of truth, which is beauty, but that only testifies to the rigid impersonation of truth; falsehood, being hideous, has to come like truth before it can impose. ”

“ Know you not that, that which is truly false, if it may be permitted me so to speak, all, both gods and men detest?—How do you mean?—Thus: No person is willing to falsify in matters of the highest concern to himself concerning those matters, but fears, above all things, lest he should accept falsehood.—Yet, I understand you not.—You think that I mean something profound. ”

“ The definition of truth and falsehood, which is our topic to-day, lies strictly outside our general subject, namely the analysis of mind. From the psychological standpoint, there may be different kinds of belief, and different degrees of certainty, but there cannot be any purely psychological means of distinguishing between true and false beliefs. ”

“ Despite the commentators, we must hold to it that the lie, the falsehood is objective and concrete; not lying, or falsehood as a subjective act, habit, or quality,—which would have been rather ψευδολογία (comp. μωρολογία, v. 4; and 1 Tim. iv. 2, ψευδολόγων) , or τὸ ψευδές. ”

“ Men lie, women lie, children lie. Have you watched a band of girls playing at the imitation of school? How cunningly the teacher feigns anger, the pupils naughtiness and sad repentance. Have you observed the plausibility in the inventions of toddling babes to escape imminent chastisement? Falsehood is a normal faculty and equipped with its protective armor, plausibility. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when we reason in words of general signification, and fall upon a general inference which is false, though it be commonly called error, it is indeed an absurdity or senseless speech. For error is but a deception in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come, of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there was no impossibility discoverable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Falsehood emphasises the ordinary meaning, the literal sense of the words, and demands that this should be accepted, believed; what the liar has in his mind is not the non-literal meaning, but none at all. But lying is greatly facilitated by the figurative meaning—think of the rhetoric in the oaths of love and the asseverations of friendship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In proportion to the falsehood in us are we exposed to the falsehood in others. The false plays upon the false without discord; comes to the false, and is welcomed as the true; there is no jar, for the false to the false look the true; darkness takes darkness for light, and great is the darkness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The actual facts photographed themselves in a blur on the poor film of his brain, already impressed with the clear-cut picture of his imagination, until the composite result was a mental image in which fancy predominated. If a lie is the voluntary and conscious perversion of the truth, he did not lie. An untruth is a misstatement of fact due to ignorance or misconception. ”

“ It remains therefore for you to decide whether the theory of deliberate falsehood, or of the unconscious accretions of tradition and misunderstanding of metaphor, supplies the least improbable explanation. For my part, having regard to the character of Christ's disciples, the abundant evidence that they misunderstood the teaching of their Master, and the frequent instances of miraculous narrative arising from misunderstanding in other cases, I have no hesitation in saying that, in this case also, the hypothesis of deceit is far more improbable than that of misunderstanding. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But allowing it possible that an individual instance of deceit might be passed over, which, however, he never could allow, yet one successful falsehood, on the plea of doing good, would necessarily make way for another, till the limits which divide right and wrong would be completely broken down, and every distinction between truth and falsehood be utterly confounded. ”

“ But secret falsehood, which in the Lord's sight is the same as open falsehood,—secret falsehood, under all its various forms of misrepresentation, deception, cunning, is daily and hourly committed by how many? by how many, too, who think that they would scorn to be guilty of a direct falsehood? Look through the business world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every man who recognizes the binding force of intuitions of a primal law of truthfulness, and who gives weight to à priori arguments for the unchanging opposition of truth and falsehood, either admits, in his discussion of this question, that a lie is never justifiable, or he is obviously illogical and inconsistent in his processes of reasoning, and in his conclusions. ”

“ The inclination to verbal composition, already spoken of as existing in so many cases, may be utilized, and imagination be given full sway in harmless directions. It seems likely that just this deliberate practice may serve to more clearly demarcate truth from falsehood in the individual's mind. ”

“ 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 have you not seen (alas, you have too surely seen) men who had contracted such a habit of falsehood that they could not shake it off—who had played with their sense of truth so long that they had almost forgotten what truth meant; men who could not speak without mystery, concealment, prevarication, half-statements ”

“ Whether a lie is best contradicted by truth, or by another lie? The author says, that, considering the large extent of the cylindrical surface of the soul, and the great propensity to believe lies in the generality of mankind of late years, he thinks the properest contradiction to a lie, is another lie. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If, on the other hand, one utters falsehood formally, through having the will to deceive, even if what one says be true, yet inasmuch as this is a voluntary and moral act, it contains falseness essentially and truth accidentally, and attains the specific nature of a lie. ”

“ Although these men have only pointed out falsehood and have not replaced it by truth, they are nevertheless worthy of commendation when we consider the well-known difficulty of discovering fact, a difficulty which led the prince of orators to exclaim: Utinam tam facile possem vera reperire, quam falsa convincere. ”