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Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

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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
When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.
Anaïs Nin1903–1977November, 1933
Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell1903–1950
Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.
George Orwell1903–1950“Benefit Of Clergy: Some Notes On Salvador Dalí,” Dickens, Dali & Others: Studies in Popular Culture (1944)
- Writing
I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty.
George Orwell1903–1950Letter to John Middleton Murry (5 August 1944), published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters, George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945 (2000), edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus
- Politics
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen1893–1918Dulce et Decorum Est (1920)In context
- War & Peace
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
Thomas Paine1737–1809The Age of Reason, Part I (1793).
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.
Thomas Paine1737–1809Rights of Man, Part II (1792), Introduction
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
Thomas Paine1737–1809Letter to the Addressers (1792)
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
Thomas Paine1737–1809“The Forester’s Letters”, Letter III: To Cato, Pennsylvania Journal (24 April 1776)
- Courage
It is the duty of every man, so far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.
Thomas Paine1737–1809The Theophilanthropist: Containing Critical, Moral, Theological and Literary Essays, in Monthly Numbers, p. 387
- Responsibility
It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once.
Thomas Paine1737–1809First Principles of Government (1795)
- Change
In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense
Thomas Paine1737–1809Common Sense (1776), Part 2In context
- Facts
Honesty is the axis on which leadership spins.
Mike Penceborn 1959Remarks at Reagan Library, C-SPAN.org (September 8, 2016)
- Leadership
To pretend is to know oneself.
Fernando Pessoa1888–1935Álvaro de Campos (heteronym), in Presença no. 5 (1927)