Truth

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older.

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.

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day, and it will be round and full at evening.

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.

No one dies of fatal truths nowadays: there are too many antidotes.

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.

There are no eternal facts as there are no absolute truths.

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, uless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.

Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.

The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.

Carlyle said 'a lie cannot live.' It shows that he did not know how to tell them.

If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.

No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even known they had done so.

Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.