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Truth quotes

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“If it is not right, do not do it: if it is not true, do not say it.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.” John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“He who cannot lie, doth not know what truth is.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'” Martin Luther King, Jr., I have a Dream

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” Mark Twain, Following the Equator

“The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.” Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.” Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.” Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” George Orwell, 1984

“When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar.” G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World

“Those truths which we know are very few in comparison with those which we do not know.” Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany

“I saw that a man of truth must also be a man of care.” Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of my Experiments with Truth

“My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth.” Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of my Experiments with Truth

“It is in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth, in other words, to silence.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it

“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Facts mean truth, and once we adhere to truth, the law comes to our aid naturally.” Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of my Experiments with Truth

“The truth . . . It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

“Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.” Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

“Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

“Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find truth, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain.” Heraclitus, On Nature

“The truth may be puzzling or counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held beliefs. Experiment is how we get a handle on it.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

“people often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it’s served up.” George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.” Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“People always think something's all true.” J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“A woman's standard of truthfulness was tacitly held to be lower: she was the subject creature, and versed in the arts of the enslaved.” Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

“The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.” Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Wisdom is to speak the truth and act in keeping with its nature.” Heraclitus, On Nature

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” Oscar Wilde, Intentions

“They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.” Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany

“That is the one eternal education; to be sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child.” G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World

“For untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity.” John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.” Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love...” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“I cannot well repeat how there I entered, So full was I of slumber at the moment In which I had abandoned the true way.” Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy

“Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.” Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

“Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken it.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?” Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“And it is evident that it is not less repugnant that falsity or imperfection, in so far as it is imperfection, should proceed from God, than that truth or perfection should proceed from nothing.” René Descartes, Discourse on the Method

“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There’s a punishment for it, and it’s usually crucifixion.” John Steinbeck, East of Eden

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Related topics

lies knowledge lie God honesty love beauty falsehood science religion loneliness happiness justice life speech story language denial writing fiction

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Mahatma Gandhi (5)
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An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (4)
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On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (2)
Pensées (6)
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