Quotes About Truth

When somebody says something that's correct, he has no need to look good.

Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.

Oh, just some crap about the essential paradox of man: How we refuse to juxtapose the absolute to the relative, and some other some-such about paradox as an ontological definition which expresses the relation between an existing cognitive spirit and eternal truth—You know, bullshit.

Many centuries after the Buddha, the Chinese Chan (Zen) patriarch Yunmen (c. 860–949) was asked: "What are the teachings of an entire lifetime?" Yunmen replied: "An appropriate statement."6 For Yunmen, what counts is whether your words and deeds are an appropriate response to the situation at hand, not whether they accord with an abstract truth.

We perceive the world in a particular way and confidently expect it to conform to its appearance. But we fail to recognize that certain aspects of the 'reality' that appear to us are nothing but figments of our own imagination. In this confusion a conflict ensues between the world as it is and the world as we believe it to be. And the more we insist on our infallibility, the more frustrated we become as the actual world again and again stubbornly refuses to live up to our expectations.

The discourses that make up the different Nik?yas are all regarded as buddhavacana, but not all of them are spoken by Gotama. The "word of the Buddha," therefore, refers to whatever is well said, to any utterance that accords with and supports the practice of the dharma, irrespective of who utters it.

For pragmatist philosophers such as these, a belief is valued as true because it is useful, because it works, because it brings tangible benefits to human beings and other creatures. Siddhattha Gotama's Four Noble Truths are "true" not because they correspond to something real somewhere, but because, when put into practice, they can enhance the quality of your life. In

He has no interest in pursuing an abstract argument to demonstrate a purely theoretical truth. His practical reason is ethical. Its first principle could be stated thus: Do no evil, Take up what is good, Purify the mind— This is the teaching of buddhas.11 In seeing conditioned arising as a "ground," Gotama implies that insight into conditionality provides "grounds" on which to act.

The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo makes a similar point to Rorty: "We don't reach agreement when we have discovered the truth," he observes; "we say we have discovered the truth when we reach agreement.

be done if we are to make the shift from a belief-based Buddhism (version 1.0) to a praxis-based Buddhism (version 2.0). We have to train ourselves to the point where on hearing or reading a text from the canon our initial response is no longer "Is that true?" but "Does this work?

This is what I have learned, Malenfant. This is how it is, how it was, how it came to be.

If I don't speak the name of this thing, it still feels like it isn't real. Does that make any sense?' The ColU spoke to them now, whispering in their earphones. 'It makes plenty of sense, Mardina Eden Jones Guthfrithson. The power of names: probably one of the oldest human superstitions, going back to the birth of language itself. To deny a name is to deny a thing reality. And yet now it is time to name names.

Honesty doesn't excuse ignorance. But it helps.

evaded her, and she sensed they did not believe her

If the answer is not the one you want, maybe you're not asking the right question.

As an engineer, he knew that a bucket-load of philosophical principles wasn't worth a grain of good hard fact.

I don't really take much notice of rumours Sir," Andrew said, straight faced. "Good man. Neither do I. Mostly lies and the rest exaggeration.

To tell you the truth, I've just been avoiding everything.

It's much easier not to know things sometimes.

Some people's fake is more honest than other people's real.

It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real.

I think it's nice for stars to do interviews to make us think they are just like us, but to tell you the truth, I get the feeling that it's all a big lie. The problem is I don't know who's lying.

I get the feeling that it's all a big lie. The problem is I don't know who's lying.

It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes, I can do that, but I don't need an hour in front of a mirror.