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TRUTH Quotes
Truth does not consist in minute accuracy of detail, but in conveying a right impression; and there are vague ways of speaking that are truer than strict facts would be. When the Psalmist said, "Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law," he did not state the fact, but he stated a truth deeper than fact, and truer.
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.
If it is the truth what does it matter who says it.
If the world goes against truth, then Athanasius goes against the world.
Unless there is a recovery of the true dualism or, what amounts to the same thing, a reaffirmation of the truths of the inner life in some form—traditional or critical, religious or humanistic—civilization in any sense that has been attached to that term hitherto is threatened at its base.
Error always addresses the passions and prejudices: truth scorns such mean intrigue, and only addresses the understanding and the conscience.
There are three parts in truth: first, the inquiry, which is the wooing of it; secondly, the knowledge of it, which is the presence of it; and thirdly, the belief, which is the enjoyment of it.
Truth is only developed in the hour of need; time, and not man, discovers it.
If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth we must still march on.
Christianity knows no truth, which is not the child of love and the parent of duty.
Truth crushed to earth will rise again; the eternal years of God are hers; but error wounded writhes in pain, and dies amid her worshippers.
One of the sublimest things in the world is plain truth.
As has been finely expressed, "Principle is a passion for truth," And as an earlier and homelier writer hath it, "The truths we believe in are the pillars of our world."
There is no fit search after truth which does not, first of all, begin to live the truth which it knows.
It is strange but true; for truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.
Statistics—I can prove anything by statistics—except the truth.
I have always found that the honest truth of our own mind has a certain attraction for every other mind that loves truth honestly.
All extremes are error. The reverse of error is not truth, but error still. Truth lies between extremes.
Truths turn into dogmas the moment they are disputed.
To restore a common-place truth to its first uncomomn lustre you need only translate it into action. But to do this you must have reflected on its truth.
It is not enough that we swallow truth: we must feed upon it, as insects do on the leaf, till the whole heart be colored by its qualities, and show its food in every fibre.
Truths of all others the most awful and interesting are too often considered as so true that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.
We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them.
We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them.
The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth, than from its abundance.
Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines!
The greatest friend of truth is time; her greatest enemy is prejudice; and her constant companion is humility.
No bad man ever wished that his breast was made of glass, or that others could read his thoughts. But the misery is, that the duplicities, the temptations, and the infirmities that surround us, have rendered the truth, and nothing but the truth, as hazardous and contraband a commodity as a man can possibly deal in.
What a man sees only in his best moments as truth is truth in all moments.
Truth and love are two of the most powerful things in the world; and when they both go together they cannot easily be withstood.
He that opposes his own judgment against the consent of the times ought to be backed with unanswerable truths; and he that has truth on his side is a fool, as well as a coward, if he is afraid to own it because of other men's opinions.
What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.
A truth that one does not understand becomes an error.
Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.
Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.
We find but few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.
Ultimately, our troubles are due to dogma and deduction; we find no new truth because we take some venerable but questionable proposition as the indubitable starting point, and never think of putting this assumption itself to a test of observation or experiment.
Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.
Much of the glory and sublimity of truth is connected with its mystery.—To understand everything we must be as God.
The finest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with the real; a ground on which nothing is assumed.
No truth so sublime but it may be seen to be trivial tomorrow in the light of new thoughts.
Every violation of truth is a stab at the health of human society.
The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.
Truth is the gravitation principle of the universe, by which it is supported, and in which it inheres.
The proselyting spirit is inseparable from the lore of truth, for it is only the effort to win others to our way of thinking.
The confusion and undesigned inaccuracy so often to be observed in conversation, especially in that of uneducated persons, proves that truth needs to be cultivated as a talent, as well as recommended as a virtue.
Honesty of thought and speech and written word is a jewel, and they who curb prejudice and seek honorably to know and speak the truth are the only builders of a better life.
Funny how people despise platitudes, when they are usually the truest thing going. A thing has to be pretty true before it gets to be a platitude.
It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.
A charitable untruth, an uncharitable truth, and an unwise management of truth or love, are all to be carefully avoided of him that would go with a right foot in the narrow way.
Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie; a fault which needs it most grows two thereby.
The grand character of truth is its capability of enduring the test of universal experience, and coming unchanged out of every possible form of fair discussion.
Religious truth, touch what points of it you will, has always to do with the being and government of God, and is, of course, illimitable in its reach.
No one truth is rightly held till it is clearly conceived and stated, and no single truth is adequately comprehended till it is viewed in harmonious relations to all the other truths of the system of which Christ is the centre.
To seek for the truth, for the sake of knowing the truth, is one of the noblest objects a man can live for.
Truth, like beauty, varies in its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention of mankind to any part of learning which time has left behind it, may be truly said to advance the literature of his own age.
Accustom your children to a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly cheek them; you do not know where deviations from truth will end.
Truth spoken before its time may be not only hurtful, but even unlawful.
One day Soshi was walking on the bank of a river with a friend. "How delightfully the fishes are enjoying themselves in the water!" exclaimed Soshi. His friend spake to him thus: "You are not a fish; how do you know that the fishes are enjoying themselves?" "Youare not myself," returned Soshi; "how do you know that I do not know that the fishes are enjoying themselves?"
Our recognition and apprehension of the highest truth is essentially an affair of the heart, far more than of the head.
Stick to the old truths and the old paths, and learn their divineness by sick beds, and in everyday work, and do not darken your mind with intellectual puzzles, which may breed disbelief, but can never breed vital religion or practical usefulness.
Receiving a new truth is adding a new sense.
Truth, whether in or out of fashion, is the measure ef knowledge, and the business of the understanding; whatsoever is beside that, however authorized by consent, or recommended by rarity, is nothing but ignorance, or something worse.
Truth is by its very nature intolerant, exclusive, for every truth is the denial of its opposing error.
Peace if possible, but truth at any rate.
The only atheism is the denial of truth.
Still rule those minds on earth at whom sage Milton's wormwood words were hurled: Truth like a bastard comes into the world never without ill-fame to him who gives her birth.—Thomas Hardy.
It is curious to observe how the nature of truth may be changed by the garb it wears; softened to the admonition of friendship, or soured into the severity of reproof; yet this severity may be useful to some tempers: it somewhat resembles a file, disagreeable in its operation, but hard metal may be the brighter for it.
A truth that disheartens because it is true is of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.
Keep one thing forever in view—the truth; and if you do this, though it may seem to lead you away from the opinions of men, it will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God.
You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it all. But let all you tell be truth.
Man with his burning soul has but an hour of breath to build a ship of truth in which his soul may sail—sail on the sea of death, for death takes toll of beauty, courage, youth, of all but truth.
The way of truth is like a great road. It is not difficult to know it. The evil is only that men will not seek it.
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than be ignorant.
There is an idiom in truth which falsehood never can imitate.
It is twice as hard to crush a half-truth as a whole lie.
I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles, that could be trusted in matters of importance.
Falsehood is in a hurry; it may be at any moment detected and punished; truth is calm, serene; its judgment is on high; its king cometh out of the chambers of eternity.
There are two peculiarities in the truths of religion: a divine beauty which renders them lovely, and a holy majesty which makes them venerable.—And there are two peculiarities in errors: an impiety which renders them horrible, and an impertinence which renders them ridiculous.
Of all duties, the love of truth, with faith and constancy in it, ranks first and highest. To love God and to love truth are one and the same.
Truth comes to us with a slow and doubtful step; measuring the ground she treads on, and forever turning her curious eye, to see that all is right behind; and with a keen survey choosing her onward path.
Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellowmen.
Truth is so great a perfection, that if God would render himself visible to men, he would choose light for his body and truth for his soul.
There is no progress in fundamental truth.—We may grow in knowledge of its moaning, and in the modes of its application, but its great principles will forever be the same.
The old faiths light their candles all about, but burly Truth comes by and blows them out.
According to Democritus, truth lies at the bottom of a well, the water of which serves as a mirror in which objects may be reflected.—I have heard, however, that some philosophers, in seeking for truth, to pay homage to her, have seen their own image and adored it instead.
Some persons profit by lying convincingly; I, by telling the truth unconvincingly. It is not so difficult as you might suppose, for in this world, where actually nothing is commonplace, people believe only in the commonplace, that which they are accustomed to see.
All truth undone becomes unreal; "he that doeth his will shall know," says Jesus.
Truth lies in character. Christ did not simply speak the truth; he was truth; truth, through and through; for truth is a thing not of words, but of life and being.
It is wondrous how, the truer we become, the more unerringly we know the ring of truth, can discern whether a man be true or not, and can fasten at once upon the rising lie in word and look and dissembling act—wondrous how the charity of Christ in the heart perceives every aberration from charity in others, in ungentle thought or slanderous tone.
It is perilous to separate thinking rightly, from acting rightly.—He is already half false who speculates on truth and does not do it.—The penalty paid by him who speculates on truth without doing it, is, that by degrees the very truth he holds becomes a falsehood.
The deepest truths are the simplest and the most common.
Truth does not do as much good in the world, as its counterfeit does mischief.
General, abstract truth is the most precious of all blessings; without it man is blind, it is the eye of reason.
Without seeking, truth cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by himself out of its husk, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own.
A truth that is merely acquired from others only clings to us as a limb added to the body, or as a false tooth, or a wax nose. A truth we have acquired by our our own mental exertions, is like our natural limbs, which really belong to us.—This is exactly the difference between an original thinker and the mere learned man.
It is the special privilege of truth always to grow on candid minds.
The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth; for all beauty is truth. True features make the beauty of a face; and true proportions the beauty of architecture; as true measures that of harmony and music. In poetry, which is all fable, truth still is the perfection.
Truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be governed by it, and can only please by its resemblance.
While you live, tell truth and shame the devil.
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.
"There is nothing," says Plato, "so delightful as the hearing or the speaking of truth"—for this reason there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.
He that finds truth, without loving her, is like a bat; which, though it have eyes to discern that there is a sun, yet hath so evil eyes, that it cannot delight in the sun.
Men must love the truth before they thoroughly believe it.
Perfect truth is possible only with knowledge, and in knowledge the whole essence of the thing operates on the soul and is joined essentially to it.
Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.
"Truth," it has been well said, "is the property of no individual, but is the treasure of all men. The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less import the question of authorship." The larger and deeper the historical basis of our religious conception, the less will it be exposed to ruin "when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow."
We must never throw away a bushel of truth because it happens to contain a few grains of chaff; on the contrary, we may sometimes profitably receive a bushel of chaff for the few grains of truth it may contain.
When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass.
The most striking contradiction of our civilization is the fundamental reverence for truth which we profess and the thorough-going disregard for it which we practice.
As Thales measured the pyramids from their shadows, so we may measure the height and antiquity of the truth, by the extent of its corruptions.
Truth without charity is often intolerant and even persecuting, as charity without truth is weak in concession and untrustworthy in judgment.—But charity, loyal to truth and rejoicing in it, has the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove.
When two truths seem directly opposed to each other, we must not question either, but remember there is a third—God—who reserves to himself the right to harmonize them.
Some modern zealots appear to have no better knowledge of truth, nor better manner of judging it, than by counting noses.
Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has any one who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth, any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.
Truth is established by investigation and delay; falsehood prospers by precipitancy.
Whatever has a mystery thrown round it causes the truth to appear more grand and awful.
Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention on the rack, and one trick needs a great many more of the same kind to make it good.
Truth is as much a matter of experience as of speculation.—An honest man will generally find it.—To know it, one must feel it; above all, must live in it.—Then it becomes vital to his spirit— a part of his being.
To all appearances, fiction is the native dialect of mankind, and the truth an esoteric language as yet but imperfectly learned and little loved.
He who seeks truth should be of no country.
Seize upon truth, wherever it is found, amongst your friends, amongst your foes, on Christian or on heathen ground; the flower's divine where'er it grows.
Truth is always congruous and agrees with itself; every truth in the universe agrees with all others.
Every one wishes to have truth on his side, but it is not every one that sincerely wishes to be on the side of truth.
As one may bring himself to believe almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether we begin or end with inquiry, "What is truth?"
In the discovery of truth, in the development of mau's mental powers and privileges, each generation has its assigned part; and it is for us to endeavour to perform our portion of this perpetual task of our species.
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