Quotes About Truth

She's not buying [the lie], but there's nothing else on the shelves.

Like that. It's all right. It's not all right. It's right.

I know it doesn't matter what I've promised because I will not live to have the conversation in the first place. I'm so good at pretending. I'm a liar. I've lied to everyone. To every person in my life, to everyone I know. I've never told the truth. I've lied to them all. [...] Everyone keeps saying that if I could remember, it would help. That's what they've said all along. And the thing is this: I remember doing it. I remember every single bit of it.

If I'm going to do this, I want to do it well. And I want people to acknowledge that. "It's all just a distraction," says the voice one night. It catches me off guard. I'd almost forgotten the voice. Is it speaking the truth? Is this all just a distraction? A pleasant diversion before the gruesome finale, what they call in opera the "Grand Guignol"? Just a distraction. But a good one.

I have no reason not to believe any of the things I've been told. I'm told so many things. I was a child. It was an accident. It wasn't my fault. I'm told. I was four years old.

The truth is, it doesn't matter. The truth is, it was ten years ago, and I didn't know Evan or his family then, and it's my history, not theirs. The truth is, I didn't wield a hunting rifle that day. The truth is, nothing anyone does it says can change what already happened. The truth is, guns are part of the world, of Brookdale, of life, and I can't, won't, and don't fall to pieces every time I see one. The truth is, I don't care about his guns.

The truth is, it doesn't matter. The truth is, it was ten years ago, and I didn't know Evan or his family then, and it's my history, not theirs. The truth is, I didn't wield a hunting rifle that day. The truth is, nothing anyone does or says can change what already happened. The truth is, guns are part of the world, of Brookdale, of life, and I can't, won't, and don't fall to pieces every time I see one. The truth is, I don't care about his guns.

I could have lied to you. It would have been a lot easier. I could have told you I was gay. Or blamed my dad, or my religion. I could have said that I had a boyfriend back in Baltimore. Because guys will listen when you tell them you belong to someone else. Like, you'll respect some made-up guy, but not me. I thought you were different. I trusted you. I told you the truth.

If in one's life a man can but find one truth, and pass it on to those who come after him, he has done well. But

Scratch the thin veneer of what man called culture or civilization and in most cases you would find a barbarian waiting to be set free.

Back then, as now, narratives shaped outcomes in courtrooms.

How can you compete, being honor bred, with one who, were it proved he lies, were neither shamed in his own nor his neighbor's eyes?

A man may go through life and remain ignorant of himself he may think himself as other than he truly is and he may die with this illusion still intact because no circumstance of his life has obliged him to revise it.

The heart is a vital organ, but it is a faulty guide to conduct. It is the mind makes judgements and comparisons, furnishes evidence on which ideas of truth can be founded.

What, in the end, can we say about Rabbi Akiva? Throughout this book I have tried to keep in mind the words of the novelist Margaret Atwood in the epigraph: "There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.

When I saw corruption, I was forced to find truth on my own. I couldn't swallow the hypocrisy.

I'll come to you with gifts of knowledge, wisdom and truth.

The search for truth takes you where the evidence leads you, even if, at first, you don't want to go there.

P]eople need to use their intelligence to evaluate what they find to be true and untrue in the Bible. This is how we need to live life generally. Everything we hear and see we need to evaluate—whether the inspiring writings of the Bible or the inspiring writings of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or George Eliot, of Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama.

Want to know the biggest lie ever written? 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. What an unmitigated pile of shit.

Which is what literature is: that I cannot read without pain, without choking on truth.

Sweet Truth is a queen proud and mighty-- Her throne is in heaven above.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.