Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

Most readBy personPage 7 of 31

It’s not enough to speak, but to speak true.
William Shakespeare1564–1616A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600)In context
Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Letter to Edwin Stanton (14 July 1864); published in Abraham Lincoln: A History (1890) by John Hay
There are a lot of lies going around…and half of them are true.
Winston Churchill1874–1965
I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs.
Samuel Goldwyn1882–1974
This truth should be kept constantly in mind by every free people desiring to preserve the sanity and poise indispensable to the permanent success of self-government.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919The Man with the Muck Rake (1906)
Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.
Emily Dickinson1830–1886
Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.
Tacitus55–120
- Fear
Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.
Tacitus55–120
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Query VI (Richmond, 1853), p. 33
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Essay to Leo Baeck (1953), Ideas and Opinions
- Knowledge
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II
If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.
Winston Churchill1874–1965On Stanley Baldwin, as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), Ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 322
- Clever Jabs