Quotes About Truth

How, then, might we contrive… one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city?

The good is the beautiful.

The absolute natures or kinds are known severally by the absolute idea of knowledge.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain, namely, that nothing is certain.

Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehood's school. And the one man who dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.

The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth. . .He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures- -I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. . .Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful No indeed.

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

There is truth in wine and children

You should not honor men more than truth.

But, my dearest Agathon, it is truth which you cannot contradict; you can without any difficulty contradict Socrates.

A estas alturas -finalizando el siglo XX- sabemos, al fin, que la historia no lo va a absolver [a Fidel Castro], sino, como decía Reynaldo Atenas, lo va a "absorber

Truth comes out in wine.

In vino veritas

In vino veritas ("In wine, truth")

The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.

take care, in reading the writings of philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable and solid and useful.

All beyond this is portentous and fabulous, inhabited by poets and mythologers, and there is nothing true or certain.

Even so the more a vicious man denies his vice, the more does it insinuate itself and master him: as those people really poor who pretend to be rich get still more poor from their false display.

Both stand charged with the rape of women; neither of them could avoid domestic misfortunes nor jealousy at home; but towards the close of their lives are both of them said to have incurred great odium with their countrymen, if, that is, we may take the stories least like poetry as our guide to the truth.

Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.