Veracity

“ The Bodhisattva spoke: 'Many kinds of virtues rest on veracity. Hear but the succinct account of them.
57. 'Veracity surpasses splendid garlands by its lovely grace and every sweet flavour by its sweetness; and inasmuch as it produces merit, that excellent good, without toil, it is superior to every kind of penance and the troublesome pilgrimages to tîrthas.
58. 'Affording to glory the opportunity of spreading among men, veracity is the way to its penetrating the three worlds. ”

“ We consider here only those people who have been unaccustomed to speaking the full and unadulterated truth, who have contented themselves throughout their lives with “approximately,” and have never had the opportunity of learning the value of veracity. ”

“ Antonyms: VERACITY. Synonyms:
Truth is primarily and verity is always a quality of thought or speech, especially of speech, as in exact conformity to fact. Veracity is properly a quality of a person, the habit of speaking and the disposition to speak the truth; a habitual liar may on some [368] occasions speak the truth, but that does not constitute him a man of veracity; on the other hand, a person of undoubted veracity may state (through ignorance or misinformation) what is not the truth. Truthfulness is a quality that may inhere either in a person or in his statements or beliefs. ”

“ But veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls. ”

“ Veracity. Honesty, truthfulness, reality, candor, truth, ingenuousness, frankness, verity, exactness, correctness, accuracy.
Ant. Deception, duplicity, falsehood, fiction, guile, mendacity, untruth, lie, delusion, fabrication, deceit, error, falseness, falsity, imposture. ”

“ It will dispose to lay aside affection on one hand and prejudice on the other, and impartially to relate the true state of things as far as we can bear witness to them, nakedly to represent facts as they have come within our notice. 3. Truth must be exercised in our promises and engagements, and veracity requires two things in relation to them: (1) That we really intend to perform them when they are made ”

“ In an indulgent, selfish, but disciplined civilisation, a statement is generally presumed to be true which bears the ordinary impress of veracity. In periods considerably less intellectual and enlightened, we shall find that nothing is presumed to be true until it has been subjected to a searching process of corroboration. ”

“ Veracity does not consist in saying, but in the intention of communicating, truth; ”

“ Thou'lt find That from the senses first hath been create Concept of truth, nor can the senses be Rebutted. For criterion must be found Worthy of greater trust, which shall defeat Through own authority the false by true; What, then, than these our senses must there be Worthy a greater trust? Shall reason, sprung From some false sense, prevail to contradict Those senses, sprung as reason wholly is From out the senses?—For lest these be true, All reason also then is falsified. Or shall the ears have power to blame the eyes, Or yet the touch the ears? ”

“ If you profess to believe in their truth, how do you reconcile their character with the universal aspect of human life, as it appears to us and to our friends? And finally, if you claim for them the assent to which proved facts have a right from every candid mind, to what extent of detail do you profess to believe in their authenticity? ”

“ You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What is this Truth you seek? what is this Beauty?' men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. ”

“ I understand you to say, that to enter upon the discussion of certain opinions, which you consider as sacred truths, would appear to argue a doubt of those truths, and that a doubt would here constitute a crime. Now as I think such a belief inconsistent with candor and charity—two feelings, indispensable both for the enjoyment of happiness ourselves, and for its distribution to others, I shall challenge its investigation. If the 162doubt of any truth shall constitute a crime, then the belief of the same truth should constitute a virtue. ”

“ Truth! there can be no merit, no craft at all, without that. And further, all beauty is in the long run only fineness of truth, or what we call expression, the finer accommodation of speech to that vision within. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have ignored them all and insisted that "truth was mighty and must prevail." I am a realist and "paint things as they are." Not so. I am an iconoclast and have broken my god and cannot put together the pieces. I have sacrificed a divine impression to a human realism. ”

“ Of course one's soul always seeks for truth, but to argue, to discuss details, which after all are of no possible importance, no more part of the eternal verities than a man's—buttons are of his character! ”

“ So then, as I insist, whatever your opinions, your expression of them is an appeal to some wider insight that you regard as real, and that you view as a live insight which comprehends your ideas, and which sees how they are related to genuine experience. This, I affirm, is the universal form which all opinion takes. A true opinion is true, because in fact it expresses what the wider insight confirms. A false opinion is false, because it is refuted by the light of this same wider view. ”

“ If these consequences are satisfactory, if they promote the purpose in hand, instead of thwarting it, and thus have a valuable effect upon life, then the truth-claim maintains its 'truth,' and is so far validated. ”

“ Truth has a slightly different expression for every one. To this aged connoisseur with his decaying faculties her expression was falseness itself, could he have scrutinised it with intelligence, but to his dim eyes it looked like the finest candour, and therefore it was the finest candour. ”

“ Let us scrupulously guard against such presumption. Let us reverently acknowledge that the infinitely wise One knows what truth, or what measure of truth, is adapted to human wants, and what is the proper time to reveal it. ”

“ Those boys, like all quacks, have one great truth which they disfigure with more than one falsehood.
“Hold fast their truth, which is a truth the world has always possessed, though its practice has been confined to the honest and laborious few. ”

“ The motives and masques, the small deceptions and the large hypocrisies of life interested you immensely, didn't they? Take the truth out and face it. You tell other people the truth—tell it to yourself. ”

“ Yet even they give us truth, not truth in the sense of fact, but in the sense of a world which arouses the same elementary emotions, intensified though they be through amazement, as are aroused by fact. ”

“ If so, where will the truth be found? Think, Brothers of the Craft, think deeply; for if truth exists, you have it, and if truth be within the reach of living creature, what other goal is worth the struggle? ”

“ And we should strengthen them. We have already multitudes of foundations and appliances for the dilution of truth—for the stunting of truth—for the promotion of half-truths—for the development of this or that side of truth. ”

“ The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is this notion that every nature must express its own truth which underlies a poem like “Fifine at the Fair.” Through expressing the truth of itself, and so grasping at half truths, even at the false, it finally reaches a higher truth. ”

“ Nothing gives the appearance of honest truth-telling so much as the taking of a statement that, upon second thought, you find too large for exact verity and then trimming it down conscientiously to the size of the truth itself. ”

“ I am merely the purveyor of facts, the gleaner of truth, and the selector of helpful experiences, first of all for my own benefit and having proved the truth in my own case and by friends to whom I passed the truths and rules. ”

“ We must be more industrious in investigation, more honest in deduction, and more willing to take the truth in its new fulness; and we must be imbued with that simplicity in faith and truth which we inculcate in our people. ”

“ So far, the truth, perhaps; the truth, guessed by the mystics of all ages, sometimes hidden in secret writings, sometimes proclaimed to the light in symbols too plain to be understood, now veiled in the reasoned propositions of philosophers, now sung in sublime verse by inspired seers; present, as truth always is, to the few, misunderstood, as all truths are, by the many. ”

“ Simply because of the Truth that remains. If it be further demanded, What is the minimum of truth in order to a pleasurable effect? we reply, So much only as will cause us to feel that the truth exists. It is this feeling alone that determines, not only the true, but the degrees of truth, and consequently the degrees of pleasure. ”

“ Truth and falsehood as commonly understood belong to those sharply defined ideas which claim a completely fixed nature of their own, one standing in solid isolation on this side, the other on that, without any community between them. ”

“ You make it out, that truth is known to you alone.... Let us assume that I know some truth, and that everybody else knows some.... But, it appears, everyone is mistaken! For you say, that truth is one for all men, don't you?... ”

“ For, in order to trust themselves, the distinctive mark of truth ought to be thoroughly known to them; and if that be obscure or concealed, what truth is there which they can seem to themselves to arrive at? ”

“ To this it is ready to sacrifice all expressions of feeling or sentiment, and all prejudices. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is its ideal, even if all pet ideas have to give way before it. ”

“ Those who accept the other horn speak of a 'fact' as though it were a truth, and argue as though the world could be spun out of pure logic, or a tissue be made of relations without any things to be related. ”

“ And lastly, let it be noted that what we call truth, guiding us to successful action and the consequent maintenance of life, is simply the accurate correspondence of subjective to objective relations; while error, leading to failure and therefore towards death, is the absence of such accurate correspondence. ”

“ Will some one say, the genuine Truth-seeker follows where she seems to lead, whatever be the consequences? Yes; whatever be the consequences to one's self, to one's opinions, prejudices, theories, philosophies, but not to still more certain truth. ”

“ Far from being a convert to such prudential reasons, I must for ever profess openly, that I think them unworthy of me. To represent as truth a thing I know to be a falsehood, not to avow a truth which I know I ought to declare ”

“ Remember always that “Truth is stranger than fiction.” The French say—“Le vrai n’est pas toujours le plus vraisemblable,”—which, literally translated, means that “Truth is not always the most truthlike.” ”

“ By the positive denial of a lie we annul the lie; by the positive affirmation of truth we establish truth, or rather our consciousness of truth is established; thus, as we deny error or affirm truth, are we carried forward and upward. These are the 'wonderful words of life' that clothe us with righteousness. ”

“ What are all the manners, as they are call'd, of even the greatest masters, which are known to differ so much from one another, and all of them from nature, but so many strong proofs of their inviolable attachment to falshood, converted into establish'd truth in their own eyes, by self-opinion? ”

“ He, one of the first to seize a truth, one of the most indomitable to persevere in the promulgation of it when perceived, went straight forward until it prevailed, and thus became instrumental in conferring some of the widest benefits which have come to us in this century. ”

“ As then we bring those things which reason hunts after, to sense, and by it judge what kind of things they are, whether the things spoken be true or false, and then sit in judgment no longer, giving full credit to its decision; so also we refer all that is said regarding men and the world to the truth, and by it judge whether it be worthless or no. ”