Famous Quotes & Sayings

Karl Popper

Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .

An epigram is a flashlight of a truth; a witticism, truth laughing at itself.

Pearl S. Buck

I learned early to understand that there is no such condition in human affairs as absolute truth. There is only truth as people see it, and truth, even in fact, may be kaleidoscopic in its variety. The damage such perception did to me I have felt ever sinceI could never belong entirely to one side of any question.

Peter Tosh

To have the truth in your possession you can be found guilty, sentenced to death.

Peter Kreeft

The scripture notion of truth is not an abstract, static, and timeless formula, but is something that comes true in time as the fulfillment of a divine promise. Truth happens in history.

Pema Chodron

We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us - a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears, and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet, when we don't close off, when we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.

Paulo Costanzo

This doesn't seem like one of those 'truth will set you free' situations.

Peter Sellers

Facts - behind them lies the whole fabric of deductive truth.

Phyllis Bottome

Truth is its own defense.

Phyllis Bottome

Truth, though it has many disadvantages, is at least changeless. You can always find it where you left it.

Phyllis Rose

When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,"Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?" If I don't know such basic things about myself, who does?

Philip Pullman

I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.

Rabindranath Tagore

Truth reveals itself in beauty.

Rabindranath Tagore

Truth looks tawdry when she is overdressed.

Rabindranath Tagore

Compliments win friends, honesty loses them.

Rabindranath Tagore

The false can never grow into truth by growing in power.

Pythagoras

Truth is to be sought with a mind purified from the passions of the body. Having overcome evil things, thou shalt experience the union of the union mortal divinity with the mortal man.

Plato

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Madame de Stael

Truth and, by consequence, liberty, will always be the chief power of honest men.

Gustave Courbet

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.

Gustave Flaubert

Everything which one invents is true, be sure of it.

Gustave Flaubert

There is no truth. There is only perception.

Greg Behrendt

We're taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side. Not in this case. In this case, assume rejection first. Assume you're the rule, not the exception. It's liberating. But we also know it's not an easy concept. -He's not just into you

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense for the man who tells the scandal, but does not tell the truth

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.

John Dryden

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.

John Dryden

Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understanding is warped with enthusiasm.

John Dryden

I never saw any good that came of telling truth.

John Dryden

For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.

John Dryden

The longest tyranny that ever sway'd Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd Their free-born reason to the Stagirite [Aristotle], And made his torch their universal light. So truth, while only one suppli'd the state, Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.

John Dryden

We find few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they help distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.

John Masefield

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.