Truth

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.

They are now informing me that not only are they better than the powerful, the masters of the world whose spittle they have to lick (not from fear, not at all from fear! but because God orders them to honour those in authority) – not only are they better, but they have a “better time”, or at least will have a better time one day. But enough! enough! I can’t bear it any longer. Bad air! Bad air! This workshop where ideals are fabricated – it seems to me just to stink of lies.

...inability to lie is still far from being love to truth. Be on your guard! ... He who cannot lie, doth not know what truth is.

It is disgraceful for a philosopher to say: the good and the beautiful are one; if he adds 'also the true', one ought to beat him. Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of the truth.

Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.

A half-truth is the worst of all lies, because it can be defended in partiality.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Truth is always strange.

If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.

By doubting we come at truth.

Philosophy is the science which considers truth.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

La vérité est en marche; rien ne peut plus l’arrêter .

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

Truth at last cannot be hidden. Dissimulation is of no avail. Dissimulation is to no purpose before so great a judge. Falsehood puts on a mask. Nothing is hidden under the sun.

Belief is the wound that knowledge heals.

I would rather discover one true cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.

When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” 1 —that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.

Yet my great-grandfather was but a waterman, looking one way, and rowing another.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.

Mistakes live in the neighborhood of truth and therefore delude us.