Quotes About Truth

Our fellowman either may voluntarily reveal to us the truth about himself, or by dissimulation he may deceive us as to the truth. No other object of knowledge can thus of its own initiative, either enlighten us with reference to itself or conceal itself, as a human being can. No other knowable object modifies its conduct from consideration of its being understood or misunderstood.

What is reasonable is real; that which is real is reasonable.

It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to conceal the inner world, there is nothing to be seen unless we go behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may see, as that there may be something behind there which can be seen.

By Nature man is not what he ought to be; only through a transforming process does he arrive at truth.

Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth.

The significance of that 'absolute commandment', know thyself — whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance — is not to promote mere self-knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality — of what is essentially and ultimately true and real — of spirit as the true and essential bein

Everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject.

what is rational is real and what is real is rational

the Beautiful is the expression of the absolute Spirit, which is truth itself. This region of Divine truth as artistically presented to perception and feeling, forms the center of the whole world of Art. It is a self-contained, free, divine formation which has completely appropriated the elements of external form as material, and which employs them only as the means of manifesting itself.

Aber die Philosophie soll keine Erzählung dessen sein, was geschieht, sondern eine Erkenntnis dessen, was wahr darin ist, und aus dem Wahren soll sie ferner das begreifen, was in der Erzählung als ein bloßes Geschehen erscheint.

Every kind of falsehood and truth is present in public opinion, but it is the prerogative of the great man to discover the truth within it. He who expresses the will of his age, tells it what its will is, and accomplishes this will, is the great man of the age.

Public opinion contains all kinds of falsity and truth, but it takes a great man to find the truth in it. The great man of the age is the one who can put into words the will of his age, tell his age what its will is, and accomplish it. What he does is the heart and the essence of his age, he actualizes his age. The man who lacks sense enough to despise public opinion expressed in gossip will never do anything great.

We must hold to the conviction that it is the nature of truth to prevail when its time has come, and that it appears only when this time has come, and therefore never appears prematurely, nor finds a public not ripe to receive it; also we must accept that the individual needs that this should be so in order to verify what is as yet a matter for himself alone, and to experience the conviction, which in the first place belongs only to a particular individual, as something universally held.

The real is the rational, and the rational is the real.

Todos los atenienses estaban iniciados en los misterios eleusinos; solo Sócrates no lo estaba, porque quería conservar las manos libres para que, si fundaba algo en el pensamiento, no le acusasen de haberlo sabido por los misterios eleusinos. Sócrates sabía que la ciencia y el arte no brotan de los misterios y que la sabiduría jamás se halla en el secreto. Antes bien, la verdadera ciencia está en el campo abierto de la conciencia.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Logiikka pitää näin ymmärtää puhtaan järjen järjestelmänä, puhtaan ajatuksen valtakuntana. Tämä valtakunta on totuus sinänsä ja itselleen, ilman verhoa. Asia voidaan siksi ilmaista niin, että tämä sisältö on Jumalan esitystä sellaisena kuin hän on ikuisessa olemuksessaan ennen luonnon ja äärellisen hengen luomista.

daß diese Furcht zu irren schon der Irrtum selbst ist.

Just 'cause the cat had her kittens in the oven don't make them biscuits.

truly my opinion is, that all our opinions are alike vain and uncertain. what we approve today, we condemn tomorrow. we keep a stir about knowledge, and spend our lives in the pursuit of it, when, alas! we know nothing all the while: nor do i think it possible for us to ever know anything in this life. our faculties are too narrow and too few. nature certainly never intended us for speculation.

In vain do we extend our view into the heavens, and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned men, and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity; we need only draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose fruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand.

Esse est percipi.

THE SECOND DIALOGUE

IT IS A HARD THING TO SUPPOSE THAT RIGHT DEDUCTIONS FROM TRUE PRINCIPLES SHOULD EVER END IN CONSEQUENCES WHICH CANNOT BE MAINTAINED or made consistent