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Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

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Some marry the first information they receive, and turn what comes later into their concubine. Since deceit is always first to arrive, there is no room left for truth.
Baltasar Gracián1601–1658The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), Maxim 227 (p. 128)
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
?UnattributedAs used by Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World (1995), Introduction, p. 7Often credited to Carl Sagan
- Facts
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
Franklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945Radio address (26 October 1939), as reported in The Baltimore Sun (27 October 1939)
A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.
Richard Feynman1918–1988“The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics,” Nobel Lecture (11 December 1965)
- Knowledge
Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations
Truth was the only daughter of Time.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
- Time
To lie is so vile, that even if it were in speaking well of godly things it would take off something from God’s grace; and Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.
Leonardo da Vinci1452–1519XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
To love truth for truth’s sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
John Locke1632–1704Letter to Anthony Collins (29 October 1703)
- Virtue
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
John Locke1632–1704An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Book IV, Ch. 7, sec. 11
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence…
John Adams1735–1826Boston Massacre trial (1770)
- Facts
Truth is the ultimate end of the whole universe.
Thomas Aquinas1225–1274Summa contra Gentiles (1259–1265), I, 1, 2
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
Nathaniel Hawthorne1804–1864The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XX: The Minister in a MazeIn context
If any theories or opinions of mine can be damaged by facts, so much the worse for my theories.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Commissioner Wells’s Report. Remarks made in the House of Representatives, January 1869. Quoted in
- Facts
Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few.
George Berkeley1685–1753Siris (1744), Paragraph 368
We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Roscoe (27 December 1820)