Quotes About Truth

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

No one can deny that much of our modern advertising is essentially dishonest; and it can be maintained that to lie freely and all the time for private profit is not to abuse the right of free speech, whether it is a violation of the law or not. But again the practical question is, how much lying for private profit is to be permitted by law?

I tell you, it was kind of two-fold. I fortunately had a lot of support. My coach was amazing - he told me to focus on being prepared and that is what I did. Every athlete is nervous - any athlete who tells you they're not nervous isn't telling you the truth. I was as prepared as I could be.

All historians, even the most scientific, have bias, if in no other sense than the determination not to have any.

the way art can become, eventually, all we have of what was true.

I closed my eyes. I dreamed again the dream called Yes: the worst is true .

We live by a perceptual "map" which is never reality itself.

Another learning which cost me much to recognize, can be stated in four words. The facts are friendly. (...) Especially in our early investigations I can well remember the anxiety of waiting to see how the findings came out. Suppose our hypotheses were disproved! Suppose we were mistaken in our views! (...) I have perhaps been slow in coming to realize that the facts are always friendly. Every bit of evidence that one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.

The best way I can state this aim of life, as I see it coming to light in my relationship with my clients, is to use the words of Soren Kierkegaar —"to be that self which one truly is.

Of course, that a sentence is utterly fallacious has never prevented it from being believed by large numbers of people and, on occasion, used as a foundational principle for a comprehensive philosophy of life.

We must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word.

Abandoning the myth of the evangelical movement can only help us, as it will free us to be who we truly are and to speak the gospel in all of its richness as we understand it.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?

We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.

An historical truth is only true once