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Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Carl Sagan1934–1996The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 1: The Most Precious Thing, p. 12
One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed.
William Hazlitt1778–1830The Spirit of the Age (1825), “Jeremy Bentham”
We too often forget that not only is there “a soul of goodness in things evil,” but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.
Herbert Spencer1820–1903First Principles (1862), Pt. I, The Unknowable
- Good & Evil
Error is related to truth as sleeping is to waking. I have observed that when one has been in error, one turns to truth as though revitalized.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Maxims and Reflections (1833), Maxim 331, trans. Stopp
Who’s Britannica to tell me that the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say that it was built in 1941, that’s my right as an American.
Stephen Colbertborn 1964White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner (April 2006)
- Comedy
- Facts
How much truth can a certain mind endure, how much truth can it dare? These questions became for me ever more and more the actual test of values.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Ecce Homo (1908), “Why I write such excellent books,” § 3, preface
Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives. (p433)
Isabel Allendeborn 1942Portrait in Sepia (2000)
Facts do not “speak for themselves.” They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theory or visions are mere isolated curiosities.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930A Conflict of Visions (1987), Ch. 1: The Role of Vision
- Facts
Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
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 Russell1872–1970Fact and Fiction (1961), Part II, Ch. 10: “University Education”, p. 153
Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.1809–1894The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859), Ch. 5
He, who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772–1834Aids to Reflection (1825), Aphorism 63, p. 89
- Christianity
Once the truth is denied to human beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.
Pope John Paul II1920–2005Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998
- Freedom
Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
- Animals
I believe in friendly compromise. I said over in the Senate hearings that truth is the glue that holds government together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.
Gerald Ford1913–2006During hearings before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, on his nomination to be Vice-President (15 November 1973)
- Government