Quotes About Truth

Better a broken promise than none at all.

I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.

Tell the truth or trump—but get the trick.

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't.

Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie — I found that out.

You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.

Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.

You can't pray a lie.

It is human to exaggerate the merits of the dead.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort 'em as much as you please.

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but I am getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter.

The proper proportions of a maxim: a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense.

In the real world, the right thing never happens in the right place and the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to make it appear that it has.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he's crooked.

All schools, all colleges have two great functions to confer, and to conceal valuable knowledge. - Notebook, 1908

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.