quotations about truth
The greatest friend of Truth is time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words
For behold, Thou lovest the truth, and he that doth it, cometh to the light.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
Truth hurts. Maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with a seat missing, but it hurts.
LT. FRANK DREBIN (LESLIE NIELSEN)
Naked Gun 2 1/2
The color of truth is grey.
ANDRE GIDE
Autumn Leaves
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
There are some things that can't be the truth even if they did happen.
KEN KESEY
Sometimes a Great Notion
If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment.
FRANCES WRIGHT
Course of Popular Lectures
The greatest truths are the simplest.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
We must not put Truth into the place of a means, but into the place of an end.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
If man refused to believe those truths which were not made evident to his reason, he could not live among his fellows, nor could he make the slightest progress in civilization.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
There is often more truth in the censure of enemies than in the flattery of friends.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it all. But let all you tell be truth.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Hide what you have to hide
And tell what you have to tell
You'll see your problems multiplied
If you continually decide
To faithfully pursue
The policy of truth
DEPECHE MODE
"Policy of Truth"
One handles truths like dynamite.
ANAÏS NIN
The Diary of Anais Nin
All truths are erroneous. This is the very essence of the dialectical process: today's truths become errors tomorrow; there is no final number.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters
The Truth, with a capital T, is what ought to be. Not simply what was, or what is.
JENNIFER LEE CARRELL
Interred With Their Bones
Half the Truth is often a great Lie.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758
Those only who can bear the truth will hear it.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
We're not given the chance to choose absolute truth. Truth's always two-faced. The only thing we have is the right to reject the lie we find most repugnant.
SERGEI LUKYANENKO
Night Watch
Truth cannot contradict truth.
POPE LEO X
Papal bull condemning every proposition contrary to the truth of the enlightened Christian faith, Apostolici Regiminis, December 19, 1513