Orson Scott Card Quotes on Truth
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'I'm accusing you of violating the laws of nature,' he said, irritated at my failure to respond. 'Nature's virtue is intact,' I reassured him. 'I just know some different laws.'
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The lies we live will always be confessed in the stories that we tell.
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I went back through some of the tapes. I can't help it. I like the kid. I think we're going to screw him up. Of course we are. It's our job. We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.
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I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will ever tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you when he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on, I am your teacher.
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Then I'll tell the truth. We're allowed to do that in emergencies. We can't plan for everything, you know.
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It was a lie of course, that it wouldn't hurt a bit. But since adults always said that when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.
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I thought you were my friend. Whatever gave you that idea...? Because you - you didn't lie.
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You remember this little boy; they never tell you anymore truth than they have to.
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So he wasn't like the adults who always believed lies as long as they made her seem to be the child they wanted her to be
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I only disbelieve the unbelievable
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Ignorance and deception can't save anybody. Knowing saves them:
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Miro expected him to be wise. He had not expected him to be so intrusive, so dangerous. Yes, he was wise, all right, he kept seeing past pretense, kept saying or doing outrageous things that were, when you thought about it, exactly right. It was as if he was so familiar with the human mind that he could see, right on your face, the desires so deep, the truths so well-disguised that you didn't even know yourself that you had them in you
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That's right. I want all the secrets opened up. I want all the files unlocked. I don't want anything hidden You don't know what you're asking. You don't know how much pain it will cause if all the secrets come out Take a look at my family. How can the truth cause anymore pain than the secrets have already caused?
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He wasn't telling the truth, with trumpets; he was telling the truth, the story you wouldn't think to doubt because it's taken for granted.
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When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?'
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If you asked me to marry you all over again today, I'd say yes. And if I'd only met you for the first time today, I'd ask. They had said the same words many, many times before. Yet they still smiled to hear them, because they were still true.
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Why did I come? I didn't come. I went. I wasn't coming here, to meet these people. I was leaving there. Getting away. Only I tricked myself.
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I no longer tell anyone half of what I know, because if I told the whole truth there would be fear, hatred, brutality, murder, war.
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Don't call the speaker of truth a liar.
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You don't know that you're right. And you don't know that I'm wrong. It's my life. The hell it is.
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Some will hate you for telling them, but some will be glad for it.
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You're only so sure you're right because they're so sure you're wrong.
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All the stories are fictions. What matters is which fiction you believe.
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I know it as much as anyone knows anything. Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon.
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Nobody's rational. We all act because we're sure of what we want, and we believe that the actions we perform will get us what we want, but we never know anything for sure, and so all our rationalities are invented to justify what we were going to do anyway before we thought of any reasons.
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You imagine that I love you, but I do not. I don't love anyone.
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Sister Carlotta is a nun. You'll never find a more honest person Honest people have been known to deceive themselves
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He knew that bean's powers of analysis were extraordinary. So, also, were his powers of deception. Some of bean's guesses weren't right - but was that because he didn't know the truth, or because he simply didn't want them to know how much he knew, or how much he guessed
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Even if that's just bullshit, sir, it's first-rate bullshit. I'll pass it on.
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There were times for absolute honesty between friends, but this wasn't one of them.
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So I have to fake it. No, I have to disbelieve it. I have to forget it's true. It isn't true. The truth is what they've been telling us
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It was as if Graff had read his heart and found the lie that would penetrate most deeply into his soul and told it to him.
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What you don't seem to understand is, sometimes you have to tell people the truth and ask them to do the thing you want, instead of trying to trick them into it.
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And then he thought: is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?
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I'm not stupid!' in [his] experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove it's own inaccuracy.
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She was sure of that. Or at least she hoped it with such fervor that it felt like certainty.
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You are so intent that you believe only what you believe that you believe, that you remain utterly blind to what you rely believe without believing that you believe it.
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The picture that emerged was beautiful and terrible at once.
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Here's my throat. I carry no weapon. You could have killed me at any time, even when I knew you were my enemy. Why did you need to deceive me into trusting you first? Were you afraid that death wouldn't bother me enough, unless I felt betrayed?
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...'The story the oversoul tells me fit's all the facts that I see. Your story, in which I'm endlessly deceived, can also explain all those facts. I have no way of knowing that your story is not true-but you have no way of knowing that my story isn't true. So I will choose the one that I love. I will close the one that, if it's true, makes this reality one worth living in. I'll act as if the life I hope for is real life, and the life that disgusts me-your life, your view of life-is the lie.'
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In all his life, [he] had never spoken with such brutal frankness about his own fear; he had never felt so exposed and vulnerable in front of anyone.
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I hate it when you back away from a quarrel like that. I don't like conflict. But you always back off at the exact moment when you're about to tell the other person exactly what she needs to hear.
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That proves you're a decent person who would never tell a lie.
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He knew she meant it. Everyone knew she meant it, and everyone knew what she said was true. Everyone had know it for years.
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Wishful thinking gives false gods to people who hunger for gods, but those who yearn for a world with no gods are no less likely to fall victim to their own wishful thinking
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[He] never claims to know what he doesn't know. When he's unsure, he says so. When he's sure, he's always right
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How can we ever know what's true? We can't. That's what I figured out a long time ago. So you don't believe in anything? I believe in everything that seems true to me right now. I just refuse to be surprised when some of those things I believe in now turn out to be false later. It helps keep me from being upset
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To remember is real. To imagine is nothing That's silly... Most of the things people say they remember they only imagine anyways
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Because you're really, really sure doesn't that mean you're right?
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You always do that. Make all the questions harder I make them truer
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In their ignorance, they were happy
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There are many things that men and women do not say, because to say them would only bring unhappiness
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False modesty is still false, no matter how charming it might seem
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I want you to discover the truth for yourself. I don't ram it down your throats like some do
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What you call intellectual honesty I call self-deception
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Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth.
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[He] put a great deal of trust in the sort of man who spoke his mind to all men, even strangers, even enemies
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I always tell what I believe. Whether it's true, I'm no more sure than any man
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Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth' and the words did pierce him, and he understood them, though he could not have put in words what it was he understood. Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth. If it feels true to me, then there is something true in it, even if it isn't all true. And if I study it out in my mind, then maybe I can find what parts of it are true, and what parts are false, and - and Alvin realized something else. That all his arguments with thrower came down to this : that if something just plain didn't make sense to Alvin, he didn't believe it, and no amount of quoting from the bible would convince him. Now Taleswapper was telling him that he was right to refuse to believe things that make no sense 'Taleswapper, does that mean that what I don't believe can't be true? 'Truth can never be told as to be understood, and not be believed
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And it came into hooch's mind that when both parties are lying and they both know the other party's lying, it comes powerfully close to being the same thing as telling the truth.
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They didn't have to believe in you. They didn't have to choose to die. But they didn't know that's what they was choosing They knew. We always know. We don't admit it to ourselves, not until the very moment of death, but in that moment, we see all the life before us and we understand how we chose, every day of our lives, the manner of our death
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Peggy couldn't tell the truth. She knew these folks too well. She knew what they all were scared of, what they all wanted, what they all had done that they'd kill her or theirself if they once got a notion that she knew. Even the ones who never done a bad thing, they'd be so ashamed to think she knew their secret dreams or private craziness. So she never could speak frankly to these folks, or something would slip out, not even a word maybe, it might be just the way she turned her head, the way she sidestepped some line of talk, and they'd know that she knew, or just fear that she knew, or just fear. Just fear alone, without even naming what it was, and it could undo them, some of them, the weakest of them
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Where do you draw the line between a humble man who knows his own weaknesses but tries to act out virtues he hasn't quite mastered yet, and a proud man who pretends to have those virtues without the slightest intention of acquiring them?
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A liar sees lies, even when they aren't there. Just as a hypocrite sees hypocrites whenever he runs across good people. Can't stand to think that anyone might really be what you only pretend to be
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When people say perhaps its cause they're lying. Either they don't believe the thing they're saying, or they do believe it only they don't want to admit they do
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I hurt him again. I meant to pretend to love him, but in the moment I simply told the truth, which is my habit. And I don't know that I want to change that habit. You can tell a lie now and then. But what happens to you when you try to live your whole life inside a lie?
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The embarrassment on all their faces. How inconvenient of her, to lay it on the line like this. To demand they face up to whatever was obvious to all of them. Oh, is this making you uncomfortable? You poor dears
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As long as no one said anything, he could pretend that it was love. That she felt about him as he felt about her
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Am I a liar, or is he mistaken? I am the only fit judge of what is in my heart, I think
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His eyes cannot be closed except by his own weeping and his own trust
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I'm always cheerful and polite. But when it matters I say what I think - cheerfully and politely
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How could you tell, when utter honesty and cynical manipulation would each account completely for the things she said and did?
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Damn her for forcing him to discover things like this about himself
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Why do you bother asking, when you know the answer and you also know that you don't intend to believe it?
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I think the secret to [her] skill at lying is that she never tells a lie that she doesn't believe with all her heart, at least for the moment it takes to tell it
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I'm not the kind of woman that has affairs' That is such pure, high-minded sounding bullshit, my love, my darling, thou object of my erotic imaginations. You are precisely the kind of woman who has affairs - you are miserable with your unloving, disloyal, self-serving, manipulative son-of-a-bitch of a husband, and you are in love with a caring, sensitive... Guy
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I want the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear it.
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A way to make it respond to who a person really is. Cut through all the: Yes? Just wondering Cut through all the ? Stories we tell ourselves. All the lies that we believe about ourselves. About who we really are
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What kind of animal are you? Can't you make up a lie and believe it?
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At last he was what he had always pretended to be. An ordinary, powerless man. He hated it.
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How do you understand me so well? 'I only know what you show me and what you tell me. It's all we ever know about each other. The only thing that helps is that nobody can ever lie for long about who they really are. Not even to themselves
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I am filled with all the truth that was discarded by men when they chose their lies and died for them. I am in constant pain, and now that I have met a man who does not add to my treasury of falsehood, you are the cruelest of them all.
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Why had he told her? Perhaps because he knew implicitly that he could trust her with his life. Or perhaps because she looked at him with such piercing intelligence that he knew that no other explanation than the truth could convince her. Even so, he had not told her half of it, for even she would have thought him mad
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They were right even though there was no way, no sensible way, no logical way they could be right
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What I hypocrite I am. To pretend that my motives are pure
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Cristoforo smiled, held out his arms, and embraced the lying bastard
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How dare they suppress the truth, I thought. But in the months since then I have come to understand that there are different kinds of truth
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To me, the truth is what actually happened. Yet it is impossible to know anything approaching the whole truth about past events. Even the people living them could not possibly understand. That truth is always out of reach
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Don't try it with me. I can't be fooled Only a fool can't be fooled. You pretend not to like Mikal. But of all the people here, you're the one most like him
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Ansset watched, keeping his promise but wishing with all his heart that somewhere in his mind there was a wall he could hide behind. Unfortunately, he was too sane.
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Now I will never let go of you in my heart, Josif thought. I will love you forever, he thought. I am lying, he thought, and this time he was right
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Tuthmose heard this in silence. Because the idea comforted him? Or because he hated hearing from her, once again, that he was wrong?
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Do you talk to your mistress like this? Like what? With utter honesty? Yes Impudently? Honesty always sounds like impudence to the vain and stupid
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No man can bear to live with a woman who speaks nothing but the truth to him. My mistress has often told me that no man could endure me for more than an hour
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I think you underestimate the ability of some men to bear the truth No you underestimate the ability of some men to believe that when they are told what they want to hear, it must be true
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Why bother coming up with more excuses when she knew the truth : that god had answered her prayer, not with the thing she asked for, but rather the thing she wanted most in her heart
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Self-knowledge can be painful, but not half so damaging as self-ignorance
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That was as childish as I've ever seen you act Shut up Envy is so ugly, especially when it's so nakedly expressed While your envy is all dressed up as loyalty. But some of us can see through the costume
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I feel like such a fool Honest people are the easiest to fool, Elisheba. I never occurred to you that they might be flattering you, because you don't lie
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I'm also vain. But I believe that true humility consists of recognizing the truth about yourself
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For once, I could look forward to the relief of talking to someone to whom I didn't have to lie, someone who might be able to understand what I had done, who might not condemn me for it
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I've been loving a lie
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I am the truth. I am the deepest truth in the most secret places of your heart. I am all your dreams come true.
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Pretending to be happy with each other when they're both so desperately lonely because along week three of their marriage they realized they didn't really know each other and they never would, they'd be strangers together for the rest of their lives. But they couldn't live with that, nobody can, I've seen thousands of marriages and they can't face it that they're paired up with a stranger and so the decent ones, the ones who want to be good, they pretend to be whatever their partner wants them to be, and then they pretend to believe in their partners pretense
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Please open your mind to the possibility that I might be an honest man who was himself deceived
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He liked [her] and so he didn't want to be polite with her, he wanted to be honest and so he said what he believed
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I know absolutely nothing about anything
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You would turn away one who comes teaching the name of god? The wicked can use god's name as well as god How can we ever know, then, unless we try them? Or should we cast away all men who use the name of god, for fear they're blasphemers? What name will god use, then?
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There is nothing so stupid or dangerous or painful that people wont eagerly do it, if by doing it they will make others believe that they are better or stronger or more honorable. I've seen people poison themselves, destroy their children, abandon their mates, cut themselves off from the world, all so that others would think that they were a better sort of person.
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The truth was that neither the first nor the second test proved anything. But if they thought it proved something, he was just as dead.
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You must be careful. You must never know things you couldn't possibly know. It makes people upset
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We're still struggling to find a significant amount of intelligence here, so no.
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I loved Libo, the way everybody in Milagre loved him. But he was willing to be a hypocrite, and so were you, and without anybody even guessing, the poison of your lies hurt us all. I don't blame you, Mother, or him. But I thank God for the Speaker. He was willing to tell us the truth, and it set us free.
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Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon. -Children of the Mind
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If I read it in the newspapers, it's probably wrong. If I read it in the major news magazines, it's hopelessly wrong.
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And it came into Hooch's mind that when both parties are lying and they both know the other party's lying, it comes powerful close to being the same thing as telling the truth. -Red Prophet
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Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth. -Ender's Game
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Everyone you say who says that they have no religious beliefs is just so certain about their belief that they accept it as truth. If you just start asking probing questions, and they start getting mad, then you've found their religion.
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Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.