Quotes About Truth

the more profound the statement, the more reversible; the deep truths are sedimented in syntax, the terms can be reversed, just as there is no principle of noncontradiction, no law of excluded middle, governing the unconscious. Then, briefly serious, Klaus would touch my shoulder: A quote like that can save your life.

The more abysmal the experience of the actual, the greater the implied heights of the virtual.

I think we're supposed to know everything we can figure out. I don't think we're supposed to make up answers just because we can't stand living with unanswered questions.

wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

And so began a bizarre situation in which Philby told Moscow the truth and was disbelieved because the truth contradicted Moscow's expectations.

Actually the only one of us who has been to Paraguay in the last thirty years is the Ambassador," said the receptionist, "and he's in Wales at the moment.

Love often begins with an outpouring of naked truth, a passionate baring of the soul.

Everyone rehearses their recollections, believing that the more often an event is remembered, the closer we come to its reality. This is not always true. Most people tell a version of the past, and then either stick to or embellish it.

Lying is wrong, son, but if it serves a greater good, it's OK.

Ben Macintyre

While Robertson and the case officers of B1A would be responsible for the day-to-day running of the double agents, the Twenty Committee would manage overall strategy and cook up a diet of harmless truths, half-truths, and uncheckable untruths to feed to the enemy.

In wartime, the truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

the end, the difference between them is a matter of moral judgment: Gordievsky was on the side of the good; and Ames was on his own side.

Yet this honesty demanded emotional deception, fraud in a virtuous cause, a sacred duplicity. He was telling MI6 every secret truth he could find while lying to his colleagues and his bosses, his family, his best friend, his estranged wife and his new lover.

Deception is a sort of seduction. In love and war, adultery and espionage, deceit can only succeed if the deceived party is willing, in some way, to be deceived.

Here, then, was a truly bizarre situation: Philby was telling Moscow the truth, but was disbelieved, and allowed to go on thinking he was believed; he was deceiving the British in order to aid the Soviets, who suspected a deception, and were in turn deceiving him.

The trickiest aspect of lying is maintaining the lie. Telling an untruth is easy, but continuing and reinforcing a lie is far harder. The natural human tendency is to deploy another lie to bolster the initial mendacity. Deceptions—in the war room, boardroom, and bedroom—usually unravel because the deceiver lets down his guard and makes the simple mistake of telling, or revealing, the truth.

Families necessitate energetic concealment of the obvious, to be plain about it. To be in a family is to work strenuously to suppress the truth, for reasons I cannot determine, and the shadow, when it came, caused competing strategies in the family I occupied.

Losing your virginity is a lot like when you find out that Santa doesn't exist… First you're slightly disappointed, and then you're happy because you're in on the secret

Understanding is a pure glass of water. All great truths have no taste. Hints of sweetness are coloured by the need for amazement.

Is there anything more real than what we have created in our minds?

He thought about how the camera makes one fall in love with an image of oneself, and perpetuates a false reality.

Naturally, the quality of language changed. Certain words became suspicious and vanished from public life. Words like 'hope', 'rights', 'truth'. Anyone heard uttering those words found empty spaces around them. It wasn't long before anyone using the word 'freedom' was suspected of harbouring dangerous intentions.

She understood that the truth of things was upside down. She grasped that those who thought they knew were ignorant, that those who thought they had power were powerless, and that those who thought they knew themselves were in great darkness.