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Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

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In every branch of knowledge the progress is proportional to the amount of facts on which to build, and therefore to the facility of obtaining data.
James Clerk Maxwell1831–1879Letter to Lewis Campbell (9 November 1851), in Lewis Campbell and William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882), ch. 6, p. 159
- Facts
- Knowledge
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956“What I Believe” in The Forum 84 (September 1930), p. 139; some of these expressions were also used separately in other Mencken essays.
- Freedom
- Knowledge
The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930Big Lies in Politics, 22 May 2012.
- Politics
There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.
Harold Pinter1930–2008Writing for the Theatre (1962) (p. 11)
I believe that world literature has it in its power to help mankind, in these its troubled hours, to see itself as it really is, notwithstanding the indoctrinations of prejudiced people and parties.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn1918–2008Nobel lecture (1970)
- Writing
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
I think we’re living through a very unique moment where again it proves that information is power. It’s a completely chaotic time where technology has helped make facts disputable, eroded truth, and crippled trust.
Maria Ressaborn 1963Time 100 Speech (April 24, 2019)
- Technology
I operate from a place of delusion-that’s what the Fame is all about… I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be⁠—and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth.
Lady Gagaborn 1986“The Rise of Lady Gaga” by Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone (11 June 2009), pp. 57-61
- Motivation & Goals
Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.
Hannah Arendt1906–1975The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Ch. 11: The Totalitarian Movement
- Facts
If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Letter to Mme. N. D. Fonvisin (1854), in Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends (1914), trans. Ethel Colburn Mayne, Letter XXI, p. 71
- Christianity
- Faith
Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth! But they won’t understand that. No, they won’t understand it.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), I
We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads — but to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both.
Carl Sagan1934–1996Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Episode 1: “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean” (1980)
- Science
Truth cannot be sought; it comes to you. You can go after only what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself.
Jiddu Krishnamurti1895–1986First Talk in Rajahmundry (20 November 1949), The Collected Works, Vol. VI, p. 5
- Knowledge
If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error.
Simone Weil1909–1943Human Personality (1943), p. 69
- Freedom
Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood.
Simone Weil1909–1943Human Personality (1943), p. 69
- Intelligence