Quotes About Truth

Painters and poets have liberty to lie.

By all means give us as much truth as possible, even though the dose is ever so bitter... Truth, man! truth is the only true poetry, if the business of poetry is to move the feelings... [B]read and meat... are facts... Bread and truth are all man wants; and a loaf is only an eatable lump of truth fitted for the body, as truth is the invisible, but no less substantial, bread of the spirit.

The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs which they have smothered and forgotten.

What is poetry but impassioned truth — philosophy in its essence — the spirit of that bright consummate flower, whose root is in our bosoms?

Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.

All poetry is simply an escape from reality. It says what is palpably not true. The only difference between poets is a difference in the kind of escape they crave. Some are content with visions of a pretty girl who is also a good cook and pays for the marketing out of her own funds; others demand the insane consolations of metaphysics, or the hiding-place of a jargon no one can understand.

History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy — a pregnant Woman.

But somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.

Oaths are but words, and words but wind...

Professors in every branch of the sciences prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is, that their theories are private property, but the truth is common stock.

A proverb is much light condensed in one flash.

Proverbs are the literature of reason.

Proverbs are the lamps to words.

The common sayings of the multitude are too true to be laughed at.

A man's life is often builded on a proverb.

The maxims of men disclose their hearts.

A proverb is an exploding atom of wisdom.

There is no way you can use the word "reality" without quotation marks around it.

It is bad enough to see one's own good things fathered on other people, but it is worse to have other people's rubbish fathered upon oneself.

The problem with Internet quotes is that you cannot always depend on their accuracy.

I never said half the crap people said I said.

I never said all that [$#*t].