Famous Quotes & Sayings

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.

Michael Leunig

Sometimes a witticism has no truth behind it.

Sathya Baba

Its is Truth and Truth alone, that is one's real friend, relative.

It's a lot on your shoulders. I wouldn't have it any other way, to tell you the truth.

Gordon B. Hinckley

No man's faith, no man's religion, no religion in all the world can ever rise above the truth.

Giuseppe Mazzini

Tradition and conscience are the two wings given to the human soul to reach the truth.

Giuseppe Mazzini

To be mistaken is a misfortune to be pitied; but to know the truth and not to conform one's actions to it is a crime which Heaven and Earth condemn.

Geri Halliwell

The truth sets you free. It's a very liberating thing, when you say this is who I am warts and all and then you can just get on with life. It's amazing.

Gerard Butler

The truth is never pretty.

Herbie Hancock

But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.

Herbert Spencer

Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions.

Herman Melville

It is not for man to follow the trail of truth too far, since by so doing he entirely loses the directing compass of his mind.

Herman Melville

A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.

Herman Melville

All truth is profound.

Herman Melville

Truth is in things, and not in words.

Henry David Thoreau

If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends!

Henry David Thoreau

Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a solid bottom everywhere.

Henry David Thoreau

Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.

Henry David Thoreau

Exaggeration! was ever any virtue attributed to a man without exaggeration? was ever any vice, without infinite exaggeration? Do we not exaggerate ourselves to ourselves, or do we recognize ourselves for the actual men we are? Are we not all great men? Yet what are we actually, to speak of? We live by exaggeration.

Henry David Thoreau

He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth.

Henry David Thoreau

You have but little more to do than throw up your cap for entertainment these American days.... Farmers' sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light.

Henry David Thoreau

Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discernonly law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple truths!

Henry David Thoreau

All expression of truth does at length take this deep ethical form.

Henry David Thoreau

Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.

Henry David Thoreau

What stuff is the man made of who is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and sublimest truth?

Henry David Thoreau

It is a momentous fact that a man may be good, or he may be bad; his life may be true, or it may be false; it may be either a shame or a glory to him. The good man builds himself up; the bad man destroys himself.

Henry David Thoreau

You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?

Henry David Thoreau

Expect no trivial truth from me, unless I am on the witness- stand. I will come as near to lying as you can drive a coach and four.

Henry David Thoreau

It is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about.

Henry David Thoreau

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.

Henry David Thoreau

When we come down into the distant village, visible from the mountain-top, the nobler inhabitants with whom we peopled it have departed, and left only vermin in its desolate streets. It is the imagination of poets which puts those brave speeches into the mouths of their heroes.

Henry David Thoreau

Fame itself is but an epitaph; as late, as false, as true.

Henry David Thoreau

Your scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins.