Quotes about truth and lies
458 quotes from 240 people
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Johnson (Boswell) (1775)- Samuel Johnson1709–1784Dr. Johnson’s Table Talk (London: 1807), p. 67
- Samuel Johnson1709–1784In James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), entry for 21 July 1763
Ben Jonson1572–1637Catiline His Conspiracy (1611), Act III, scene iiWhere it concerns himself,
Who’s angry at a slander makes it true.Ben Jonson1572–1637Catiline His Conspiracy (1611), Act III, scene iThose who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.
Joseph Joubert1754–1824Pearls of Thought (1881), p. 188By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man.
Immanuel Kant1724–1804Doctrine of Virtue as translated by Mary J. Gregor (1964), p. 93Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.
John Keats1795–1821Ode on a Grecian Urn, Stanza 5. The final lines of this poem have been rendered in various ways in different editions, some placing the entire last two lines within quotation marks, others only the statement “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” …In context
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Commencement address, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (11 June 1962)
Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855Journals IV A 87 (1843)- Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855Works of Love (1847), p. 5
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Rudyard Kipling1865–1936Epitaphs of the War (1914-1918) (1918), Common Form- Rudyard Kipling1865–1936“Fiction”, speech to the Royal Society of Literature, June 1926; published in Writings on Writing: Rudyard Kipling (1996), ed. Sandra Kemp and Lisa Lewis, p. 80
It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.
