Quotes About Truth

Our rational, grown-up selves are good liars. The five-year-old tyrants within us are the ones who can tell it like it is.

us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will choose how this story ends.

I love this from theologian Richard Rohr: "My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.

We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we're afraid to let them see it in us.

Knowledge is only rumor until it lives in the bones

Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness. Yes, we are totally exposed when we are vulnerable. Yes, we are in the torture chamber that we call uncertainty. And, yes, we're taking a huge emotional risk when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. But there's no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to emotional exposure equals weakness.

paradox is the appearance of contradiction between two related components. Although light and darkness seem to be opposites, you can't have one without the other—the opposing elements of a paradox are inextricably linked. Even though the elements seem contradictory, they actually complement and inform each other in ways that allow us to discover underlying truths about ourselves and the world.

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.

I think that's the biggest watch-out with irony and sarcasm: Are you dressing something up in humor that actually requires clarity and honesty?

one of the most universal numbing strategies is what I call crazy-busy. I often say that when they start having twelve-step meetings for busy-aholics, they'll need to rent out football stadiums. We are a culture of people who've bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won't catch up with us.

First, one of the most universal numbing strategies is what I call crazy-busy. I often say that when they start having twelve-step meetings for busy-aholics, they'll need to rent out football stadiums. We are a culture of people who've bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won't catch up with us.

bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. Harry G. Frankfurt, Professor Emeritus, Yale University (From his book, On Bullshit)

Owning our stories means reckoning with our feelings and rumbling with our dark emotions—our fear, anger, aggression, shame, and blame. This isn't easy, but the alternative—denying our stories and disengaging from emotion—means choosing to live our entire lives in the dark. When we decide to own our stories and live our truth, we bring our light to the darkness.

I don't know. I really don't. All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what should or could be." His answer felt like truth to me. Not an easy truth, but truth.

You can't get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability. Embrace the suck. At the heart of daring leadership is a deeply human truth that is rarely acknowledged, especially at work: Courage and fear are not mutually exclusive.

We are a culture of people who've bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won't catch up with us.

The stories were confabulations—lies, honestly told.

recognize the beauty in truth and tenacity.

I am not here to be right, I am here to get it right.

Brandolini's law: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

It's helpful to think of lying as a defiance of the truth and bullshitting as a wholesale dismissal of the truth.

Tell me more—what are you thinking?" and respect his truth as a full truth, not just an off version of my truth.

The stories of our struggles are difficult for everyone to own, and if we've worked hard to make sure everything looks "just right" on the outside, the stakes are high when it comes to truth-telling. This is why shame loves perfectionists—it's so easy to keep us quiet.

Carl Jung argued that a paradox is one of our most valued spiritual possessions and a great witness to the truth.