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Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

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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 truth, for time alone reveals the just;
A villain is detected in a day.
Sophocles496–406 BCOedipus the King (c. 429 BC), spoken by CreonIn context
- Justice
- Time
Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.
Sophocles496–406 BCOedipus the King (c. 429 BC), spoken by TeiresiasIn context
- Freedom
Facts do not “speak for themselves.” They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theory or visions are mere isolated curiosities.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930A Conflict of Visions (1987), Ch. 1: The Role of Vision
- Facts
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
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
The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.
Herbert Spencer1820–1903First Principles (1862), Pt. I, The Unknowable; Ch. I, Religion and Science
We too often forget that not only is there “a soul of goodness in things evil,” but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.
Herbert Spencer1820–1903First Principles (1862), Pt. I, The Unknowable
- Good & Evil
Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.
Herbert Spencer1820–1903The Development Hypothesis (1852)
- Facts
- Science
Truth is a standard both of itself and of falsity.
Baruch Spinoza1632–1677Ethics (1677), Part II, Prop. XLIII, Scholium
Politeness does not interfere with facts, politeness is just another fact.
Gertrude Stein1874–1946Paris France (1940)
- Facts
There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one’s convictions and not tell the people the truth.
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
- Politics
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881), Truth of Intercourse.
Violent zeal for truth hath an hundred to one odds to be either petulancy, ambition, or pride.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Thoughts on Religion
I said the thing which was not;” for they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Chapter IIIIn context