Quotes about truth and lies
458 quotes from 240 people
Mankind are not held together by lies. Trust is the foundation of society.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895“Our Composite Nationality”, speech in Boston (1869)I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it.
Isaac Asimov1920–1992The Roving Mind (1983), p. 43
Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855Works of Love (1847), p. 5
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), ch. V
Bertrand Russell1872–1970The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1923)A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914)
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Responding to a claim that backing a nuclear test ban would cost him votes; as quoted in As We Knew Adlai: The Stevenson Story by Twenty-two Friends (1966), ed. Edward P. Doyle, p. 185
Leo Tolstoy1828–1910Sevastopol in May (1855), Ch. 16
Samuel Johnson1709–1784In James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), entry for 21 July 1763I 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
Malcolm X1925–1965The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), p. 400
Arthur Schopenhauer1788–1860“On Authorship and Style”, Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth.
Robert G. Ingersoll1833–1899The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)- Robert G. Ingersoll1833–1899The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Václav Havel1936–2011International Herald Tribune (29 October 1991)