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Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

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I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
William James1842–1910The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness. The truths we respect are those born of affliction.
Susan Sontag1933–2004Review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil, The New York Review of Books (1 February 1963)
- Health
The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal statement, but fruits of the soul’s inner experience.
Sri Aurobindo1872–1950Indian Spirituality and Life (1919)
- Religion
Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.
Willa Cather1873–1947The Song of the Lark (1915), Part VI, Ch. 11
- Art
It’s a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it’s equally assumed you’re lying your head off.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939On Writing Poetry (1995)
- Writing
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881), Truth of Intercourse.
The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
Philip Roth1933–2018The Human Stain (2000)
Anything but history, for history must be false.
Robert Walpole1676–1745Remark to his son, who offered to read history to him; in Walpoliana (1799), vol. 1, p. 60
- History
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
Joseph Conrad1857–1924Under Western Eyes (1911), Pt. I
- Talking
The more data we have, the more likely we are to drown in it.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960Fooled by Randomness (2001)
- Facts
- Knowledge
I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.
Washington Irving1783–1859Tales of a Traveler, To the Reader (1824)
- Writing
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.
Neil deGrasse Tysonborn 1958Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO, 4 February 2011)
- Science
Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging.
Martin Luther1483–1546Table Talk (1569), 53
All secrets become deep. All secrets become dark. That’s in the nature of secrets.
Cory Doctorowborn 1971Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2005)
Who never doubted never half believed
Where doubt there truth is⁠—‘t is her shadow.
Philip James Bailey1816–1902Festus (1839)
- Faith