TRUTH QUOTES XIX

quotations about truth

The semblance of absolute truth is nothing but absolute conformism.

PAUL FEYERABEND

Against Method


I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary."

KEN KESEY

Sometimes a Great Notion

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Man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

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Truth is a pillar erected by God, and upholdeth the universe.

JAMES LINEN

"Desultorious Chronicles", The Poetical and Prose Writings of James Linen


There's many a true word spoken in jest.

JAMES JOYCE

Ulysses

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A half-truth does more mischief than a whole lie.

IVAN PANIN

Thoughts


Serious misfortunes, originating in misrepresentation, frequently flow and spread before they can be dissipated by truth.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

letter to John Jay, May 8, 1796

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We can, in general, be much less sure of the truth of a thing, than of the falsehood; because though every part we have seen may agree, yet we cannot tell how many may be behind, and one failure of connection will be sufficient to falsify the whole.

FULKE GREVILLE

Maxims, Characters, and Reflections


If you handle truth carelessly, it will cut your fingers.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


For simple are the words of truth.

AESCHYLUS

fragment, Hoplon Krisis

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Just think, reader, what will happen to you if the truth of a mad beast overpowers the sane truth of man?

MAXIM GORKY

Untimely Thoughts

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Spurn not at seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth;
And beware of seeming truths that grow on the roots of error.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy

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The truth has no need to be uttered to be made apparent, and ... one may perhaps gather it with more certainty, without waiting for words and without even taking any account of them, from countless outward signs, even from certain invisible phenomena, analogous in the sphere of human character to what atmospheric changes are in the physical world.

MARCEL PROUST

The Guermantes Way

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The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom.--Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.

JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER

Aphorisms on Man

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Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.

HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL

Journal Intime

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It's strange how the human mind swings back and forth, from one extreme to another. Does truth lie at some point of the pendulum's swing, at a point where it never rests, not in the dull perpendicular mean where it dangles in the end like a windless flag, but at an angle, nearer one extreme than another? If only a miracle could stop the pendulum at an angle of sixty degrees, one would believe the truth was there.

GRAHAM GREENE

The End of the Affair

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All men need truth as they need water; if wise men are as high grounds where the springs rise, ordinary men are the lower grounds which their waters nourish.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust


Lower a bucket into a well of self-deception, and what comes up must be immortal truth, mustn't it?

CHARLES READE

The Cloister and the Hearth

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Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing.

BRUCE LEE

Tao of Jeet Kune Do

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Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

"University Education", Fact and Fiction

Tags: Bertrand Russell