Quotes About Truth

many people prefer the comfort of fantasy to the harshness of reality. They seem to reason this way: 'How can I arrange my beliefs so I'll feel most comfortable?' rather than arranging them to agree with reality.

Richard Bernstein's Beyond Objectivism and Relativism

To avoid confusion, let me make an important distinction: Practically all philosophers these days are fallibilists. That is, they recognize that even our best-supported theories and factual claims are fallible and may turn out to be wrong—as, indeed, they so often have in the past. But fallibilism does not entail relativism

Foundationalism sounds too good to be true, and it is. For one thing, the distinction between "basic" and "nonbasic" beliefs appears simplistic and naïve

Yet the replacement thesis faces an obvious, glaring problem. As Hilary Kornblith notes, psychology can tell us how we do arrive at our beliefs, but we can still ask, "Are the processes by which we do arrive at our beliefs the ones by which we ought to arrive at our beliefs?

Science is objective not because scientists are just naturally more objective thinkers—or due to any other quirk of the scientific brain (including intelligence)—but because scientists acknowledge their biases, and construct methods to counteract them

The Web of Belief, second edition, coauthored with J. S. Ullian (New York: Random House, 1978)

As I have heard it put, a critical thinker is good at distinguishing gold from bullshit

the world becomes a better place – an easier place to navigate if we admit that even though there are opinions, they may be wrong.

Poetry is a means of seeing invisible things and saying unspeakable things about them.

I stand accused of bringing you more bad than good news. At times, and we are in such a time now, at times in human history, bad is disproportionate to good, and so I own up to the indictment. It's a fact of life, my Canadian brethren, that we cannot always control where the truth comes from, or how bad it turns out to be, or what it reveals about human nature.

I was hurt, though I do not deserve to be. If you lie, you become the lie.

We were born to crucify the truth; it is our mission in life, and we must not be blamed when we fulfill our destiny.

Sporcati le mani. Ascolta e comunica con trasparenza. Racconta la tua storia e non lasciare che siano gli altri a definirti. Trai ispirazione da chi ha esperienze reali da raccontarti. Lega le loro storie ai tuoi valori. Fai scelte dure: è l'azione quella che conta. Cerca la verità e le lezioni in ogni errore. Sii responsabile per quello che vedi, ascolti e fai.

The penalty of deception is to become a deception, with all sense of moral discrimination vitiated. A man who lies habitually becomes a lie, and it is increasingly impossible for him to know when he is lying and when he is not. In other words, the moral mercury of life is reduced to zero.

I will make of my life a High Priest of Truth.

When hatred serves as a dimension of self-realization, the illusion of righteousness is easy to create.

The desire to be one's true self is ever persistent.

Gravestones tell truth scarcely fourty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old Families last not three Oaks.' – Browne, Urn Burial, 1658

History is important. If you don't know history it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.

But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is... to tell the truth.

I believe in Jesus An' what the Bible said An' I am fairly certain He had himself a heavy head. He scared the lyin' people So bad, they hung him dead An' they never even listened To what he really said.

Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.

Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. To be credible, it must be true.