Quotations about Truth

"Truth has always had many loud proclaimers, but the question is whether a person will in the deepest sense acknowledge the truth, allow it to permeate his whole being, accept all its consequences, and not have an emergency hiding place for himself and a Judas kiss for the consequence."

--Soren Kirekegaard
Provocations

"In the mountains of truth you never climb in vain."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, 

Thus Spake Zarathustra
  

"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear."
--Herbert Agar
A Time for Greatness
"Truth is a funny thing. Many want to be known as followers of the truth, but that same many subconsciously hope to avoid the consequences of catching it. To apprehend the truth is to be changed into something we could never have imagined in the fog of our delusions. It takes true abandonment to faith in the Spirit of Truth to finally become conformed to His image. Having a vested interest in what the truth is always leads you to bow before your own image as you peer into that glass darkly. There is no substitute for taking up the cross that kills all ambition and self seeking and following that One who said, "I AM the Truth!" To fall short of this walk is to be forever caught in the lie."
--Michael Clark
Letter to a friend, June 2002
"Just remember this, my girl. When you look up in the sky, you can see the stars and still not see the light."

--The Eagles
I'm Already Gone

 

". . .the larger the crowd, the more probable that that which it praises is folly, and the more improbable that it is truth; and the most improbable of all that it is any eternal truth."
-- Soren Kierkegaard, 
Purity of Heart

 

". . .in the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many."

--Rene Descartes

 Rules
 

"No doubt the truth is hard to come by for those who do not like the sound of it -- dreams and illusions are so much more pleasant."

-- Anatoli Granovsky, 

I Was an NKVD Agent
 

"If  you don't believe something is true, you won't believe something is right.  If  your epistemology is gone, your ethics will soon follow.  If you have principles, then you have specifics; without principles you have nothing."

-- Dr. Walter H. Johnson

lecture to Epistemology class at

Seattle Pacific University, 1967
 

"The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.  Little men are dissolved in it.  If there is any gold, truth makes it shine more brightly. . . .Truth, even in the mouth of an informer, a spy, a briber, can become bigger than anybody who tries to destroy it.  Truth survives."
-- Adela Rogers St. Johns
 Final Verdict
 
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." 
--Bertrand Russell
Marriage and Morals

 

"He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers."
--Charles Pierre Peguy
Provincial Letter