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Quotes about truth and lies

458 quotes from 240 people

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Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult.
George Eliot1819–1880Adam Bede (1859)
God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please⁠—you can never have both.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882
The highest compact we can make with our fellow, is, — “Let there be truth between us two forevermore”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882The Conduct of Life (1860), Behavior
- Friendship
I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.
Michael Faraday1791–1867Lecture notes of 1858, quoted in The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870) by Bence Jones, Vol. 2, p. 403
- Facts
- Poetry
A single fact will often spoil an interesting argument.
WFWilliam Feather1889–1981Featherisms (2008)
- Debate
- Facts
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
I believe in friendly compromise. I said over in the Senate hearings that truth is the glue that holds government together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.
Gerald Ford1913–2006During hearings before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, on his nomination to be Vice-President (15 November 1973)
- Government
I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself.
Gerald Ford1913–2006Our Long National Nightmare Is Over (1974)
- Government
A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.
E. M. Forster1879–1970Two Cheers for Democracy (1951), “Anonymity: An Enquiry”
- Poetry
It is so difficult⁠—at least, I find it difficult⁠—to understand people who speak the truth.
E. M. Forster1879–1970A Room with a View (1908), Part One, Chapter IIn context
Half the Truth is often a great Lie.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Poor Richard’s Almanack
He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.
Sigmund Freud1856–1939Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905) Ch. 2: The First Dream
Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.
Sigmund Freud1856–1939Letter to Wilhelm Fliess (15 October 1897), as quoted in Origins of Psychoanalysis
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.
Robert Frost1874–1963North of Boston (1914), The Black Cottage
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
Robert Frost1874–1963A Boy’s Will (1913, 1915), Mowing
- Facts
- Work