Quotes About Truth

The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated.

You say that you people don't burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that's what true faith would mean, y'see? Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathin' the soul of it. That's religion. Anything else is just . . . is just bein' nice. And a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbors.

Good or bad, do it as you. Too many lies and there's no truth to go back to.

It's not lying when you do it to officers!

Trouble is, just because things are obvious doesn't mean they're true.

YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. So we can believe the big ones? YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

It's hard to explain, said Brutha. But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave... you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.

You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you.

When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth.

The more you think about it, the more amazing the everyday world of human beings becomes: most of it doesn't actually exist at all.

But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever - provided, naturally, that you don't go and look. This is known as finance.

Things are not as they seem. They are what they are.

Before you can kill the monster you have to say its name.

Nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough.

This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That's why everything is exactly the wrong way around.

No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.

It wasn't by eliminating the impossible that you got at the truth, however improbable; it was by the much harder process of eliminating the possibilities. You worked away, patiently asking questions and looking hard at things. You walked and talked, and in your heart you just hoped like hell that some bugger's nerve'd crack and he'd give himself up.

Granny Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world. "Where am I?" INSIDE THE MIRROR. "Am I dead?" THE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES. Esme turned, and a billion figures turned with her. "When can I get out?" WHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT'S REAL. "Is this a trick question?" NO. Granny looked down at herself. "This one," she said.

But is all this true? said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork. You mean you don't KNOW it's true? said Brutha. I THINK it might be, said Didactylos. I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust Mothers of Borogravia! and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...

Haven't you got any romance in your soul?' said Magrat plaintively. 'No,' said Granny. 'I ain't. And stars don't care what you wish, and magic don't make things better, and no one doesn't get burned who sticks their hand in a fire. If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What's real, what's not real, and what's the difference.

Ordinary fortune-tellers tell you what you want to happen; witches tell you what's going to happen whether you want it to or not. Strangely enough, witches tend to be more accurate but less popular.

Most horses don't walk backwards voluntarily, because what they can't see doesn't exist.

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS, STAYS HAPPENED. What kind of philosophy is that? THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS.