Truth is that which is in accord with reality, fact, and experience, that which is authentic. Truth can include facts, and truth can include a coherence with experience. The word in English derives from an older word similar to that meaning faithful (truth is that which is faithful to reality or experience), and ultimately is derived from a root meaning tree. To be truthful is to be as straight and strong as a tree. Other languages have words for truth (veritas, pravda, etc.) that have different derivations.
These quotations explore aspects of truth and truth-telling.
Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient.
Let us found religion upon a basis of perfect intellectual honesty. Religion, if it is to mean anything at all, must stand for the highest truth. How then can the cause of truth be served by the sacrifice, more or less disguised, of one’s intellectual convictions?
Though aware that our knowledge is incomplete, that our truth is partial, that our love is imperfect, we believe that new light is ever waiting to break through individual hearts and minds.
The contemplation of things as they are, without substitution or imposture, without error or confusion, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention.
The truth is more important than the facts.
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.
All truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?
In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.
There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.
All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.
It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.
There are no facts, only interpretations.
What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.
Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.
And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.
Faith is a commitment to live as if certain things are true, and thereby help to make them so. Faith is a commitment to live as if life is a wondrous mystery, as if life is good, as if love is divine, as if we are responsible for the well-being of those around us.
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
