Quotes About Truth

The Sicilian's word was not just law, it was gospel.

But you wouldn't have ever known I was going to kill you if I hadn't been the one to tell you. Doesn't that let you know I can be trusted? Frankly, and I hope you won't be insulted, no.

Das Leben ist nicht gerecht, Bill. Wir erzählen unseren Kindern, daß es gerecht ist, aber das ist eine Gemeinheit. Es ist nicht bloß eine Lüge, es ist eine grausame Lüge. Das Leben ist nicht gerecht, ist es nie gewesen und wird es nie sein.‹

Perhaps the wrath, the just judgment of God upon us is a kind of slaying, a kind of baptismal death to our illusions and lies, that pain that happens when we are given time to stare into the mirror of truth, the pain that is harsh but is also due to love?

The Bible's concern is not if we shall believe but what we shall believe.

The difference between faith and insanity is that faith is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence, whereas insanity is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.

The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.

I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.

Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true.

Christianity has a basic content, and that content matters.

Whatsoever is not said in all sincerity, is wrongly said. And not to be able to rid oneself of this vice is only to sink deeper toward perdition. "Those who do evil in the open light of day—men will punish them. Those who do evil in secret—God will punish them. Who fears both man and God, he is fit to walk alone.

To be honest is to be real, genuine, authentic, and bona fide. To be dishonest is to be partly feigned, forged, fake, or fictitious. Honesty expresses both self-respect and respect for others. Dishonesty fully respects neither oneself nor others. Honesty imbues lives with openness, reliability, and candor; it expresses a disposition to live in the light. Dishonesty seeks shade, cover

Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of anyone.

It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride.

But every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain dealing, and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?

Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth is as much to say as that he is brave toward God and a coward toward men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.

Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. . . .

O king, great is truth, and stronger than all things. Wine is wicked, the king is wicked, all the children of men are wicked, and they shall perish. But truth lasts forever. She is always strong, she never dies and is never defeated. With truth there is no respect of persons, and she cannot be bribed. She doeth the things that are just.

It is not for me to declare a winner in this fight," he told them. "Truth and Falsehood are destined to struggle. Sometimes Truth will win, but other times Falsehood will prevail, and then Truth must rise up and fight again. Until the end of the world, Truth must battle Falsehood, and must never rest or let down his guard, or he will be finished once and for all." And so Truth and Falsehood are fighting to this day.

Too often have we believed the old lie that says we're bad, we're perverted, we're abominations. But those who spread the lie don't know. They don't know how we love, how we hurt, how we live.

Belief creates the actual fact.

I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather I fear to lose truth by the pretension to possess it already wholly.