Quotes About Truth

Of course, like all over-simple classifications of this type, the dichotomy becomes, if pressed, artificial, scholastic and ultimately absurd. But if it is not an aid to serious criticism, neither should it be rejected as being merely superficial or frivolous: like all distinctions which embody any degree of truth, it offers a point of view from which to look and compare, a starting-point for genuine investigation.

No new truths await discovery; everything has been given already. But it has all been scattered abroad and dispersed, misrepresented by analysis, dulled by routine repetition. The essential words have been prostituted. We must recover the vital meaning of these ideas.

Sometimes, honesty really wasn't the best policy. Or, at least, it wasn't the kindest policy.

Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.

Who can say it's not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what's described here isn't the true essence of things?" He slowed down outside a door. "Haven't you ever heard old men sigh that life's a dream?

To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity.

Sometimes it is hard to know what the truth is. And sometimes truth is pain. Easier to hide the truth and make a secret of it, than to face it. -Chapter 22, page 254

Never trust a mirror,' his mother had told him. 'They never tell the truth unless you make them.

Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.

Abhor flatterers as you would deceivers; for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them.

The Creator has – I say it in all reverence - drawn a myriad red herrings across the track, but the true scientist refuses to be baffled by superficial appearances in detecting the secrets of Nature. The vulgar herd catches at the gross apparent fact, but the man of insight knows what lies on the surfaces does lie.

Where there are humans you'll find flies, and Buddhas.

Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.

In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions. This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.

The scriptures are within yourself; [those that are written down] only point out what you have not been able to see on your own.

He that flatters you more than you desire either has deceived you or wishes to deceive.

He that jokes confesses.

He who knows little quickly tells it.

Illness tells us what we are.

Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.

There is no language without deceit.

It's better not to know authors personally, because the real person never corresponds to the image you form of him from reading his books.

Si conobbero. Lui conobbe lei e se stesso, perché in verità non s'era mai saputo. E lei conobbe lui e se stessa, perché pur essendosi saputa sempre, mai s'era potuta riconoscere così.

Whether there is such a thing as Reality, of which the various levels are only partial aspects, or whether there are only levels, is something that literature cannot decide. Literature recognizes rather the *reality of the levels.*