Quotes About Truth

We have all been fooled into believing in people who are entirely imaginary--made-up prisoners in a hypothetical panopticon. But the point isn't whether or not you believe in imaginary people; it's whether or not you want to. I think I'll stick with reality, I said, handing Cassidy back her phone. She stared at it, and then me, disappointed. I'd think you of all people would want to escape. Imaginary prisoners are still prisoners.

There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on.

It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.

Only once, I told them. It had happened only once. That was true. But it came back more than once, after that first time. Whatever it was. The Drop. That was what I named it. —The Drop? Rachel would ask. Always at night. Always lying down. Only in the loft. Only in those two years. She liked the name. It did the trick, caged it, made it comical.

Things you make up bleed into things tha' definitely happened. Like describin' an event, an actual occasion. You add to it, you take things out. You forget exact details. I don't think it's dishonest.

Everyone wants a revelation, but no one wants to be revealed.

Shut up! I say, holding my hands to my ears. Shut up! But the stupid gummy won't shut up; he's trying to tell me something important even though I'm covering my ears and I don't want to hear it and I don't want to think about who I am or what's wrong with me or why I'm out here at the edge of the Urb, at the edge of the known world, listening to some old mope who's so crazy, he think about the future when everyone knows that the future doesn't exist.

I told my wife the truth. I told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Then she told me the truth: that she was seeing a psychiatrist, two plumbers, and a bartender.

The truth is that not only did Christianity not impede the rise of science; it was essential to it, which is why science arose only in the Christian West!

Is it our senses that lend the subject these different conditions, while the subjects nevertheless have only one? That is what we see in the bread we eat; it is only bread, but our use makes of it bones, blood, flesh, hair, and nails:

Now since our condition accommodates things to itself and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know what things are in truth; for nothing comes to us except as falsified and altered by our senses.

The uncertainty of our senses makes uncertain all that they produce:

Since no one individual can mandate a perfectly accurate description of reality, you must draw from many other people's perceptions to imbue your reality with the deepest possible understanding of its many hues and shades.

The hard things people need to say and hear are those things that can do the most to help them see the reality of a situation, a reality that can make all the difference between success and failure. That's the prize. It's not about the hard things hurting you; it's about the hard things helping you see a reality that will move you to a better place to get the results you want. Now

Entertainment is about the way things should be. Art is about the way they are.

In my reviews, I feel it's good to make it clear that I'm not proposing objective truth, but subjective reactions; a review should reflect the immediate experience.

Drama holds a mirror up to life, but needn't reproduce it.

Most courtroom movies feel it necessary to end with a clear-cut verdict. But 12 Angry Men never states whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. It is about whether the jury has a reasonable doubt about his guilt.

But it happens, and I am thankful enough for that, for those fleeting, wakeful moments of beauty and truth. They are the real joy of being human, brief matches that flare in the dark.

I never sold out before because nobody ever asked me. In all it took around twenty minutes.

I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth.

G* No individual mathematician ascertains mathematical truth solely by means of an algorithm that he or she knows to be sound.

there seems to be something non-algorithmic about our conscious thinking. In particular, a conclusion from the argument in Chapter 4, particularly concerning Gödel's theorem, was that, at least in mathematics, conscious contemplation can sometimes enable one to ascertain the truth of a statement in a way that no algorithm could.

Nonsense has taken up residence in the heart of public debate and also in the academy. This nonsense is part of the huge fund of unreason on which the plans and schemes of optimists draw for their vitality. Nonsense confiscates meaning. It thereby puts truth and falsehood, reason and unreason, light and darkness on an equal footing. It is a blow cast in defence of intellectual freedom, as the optimists construe it, namely the freedom to believe anything at all, provided you feel better for it.