3,264 Truth Quotes

If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.

Media people should have long noses like an elephant to smell out politicians, mayors, prime ministers and businessmen. We need to know the reality, the good and the bad, not just the appearance.

Maybe the Dalai Lama is the only person who is totally honest, and even with him, he's skillful not to hurt anybody. He's skillful.

I can't work without a model. I won't say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.

People who don't know anything tend to make up fake rules, the real rules being considerably more difficult to learn.

A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. 'Might makes right,' and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies.

It is thus quite simply false that whereof one cannot speak (in the sense of 'there is nothing to say about it that specifies it and grants it separating properties'), thereof one must be silent. It must on the contrary be named.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

Time will prolong time, and life will serve life. In this field that is both limited and bulging with possibilities, everything to himself, except his lucidity, seems unforeseeable to him. What rule, then, could emanate from that unreasonable order? The only truth that might seem instructive to him is not formal: it comes to life and unfolds in men. The absurd mind cannot so much expect ethical rules at the end of its reasoning as, rather, illustrations and the breath of human lives.

There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.

The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think.

I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.

When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. ... there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.

Truth is what stands the test of experience.

I don't believe in mathematics.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest.

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

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

I don't think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we're someone else. I don't tell tall tales. I always tell the truth.

The quiet conscience is an invention of the devil.

Faith which refuses to face indisputable facts is but little faith. Truth is always gain, however hard it is to accommodate ourselves to it. To linger in any kind of untruth proves to be a departure from the straight way of faith.

Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Whores are the most honest girls. They present the bill right away.

Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.

How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.

'It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.'

No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.

The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.

Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.

It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen.

Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based on truth or not.

The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, 'There's a Chaplain who never visited the front.'

The majority is always sane.

To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth:but only a problem of art is solved in poetry.

Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don't over-analyse your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.

Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth.

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us.

You will die - and it will all be over. You will die and find out everything - or cease asking.

There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.

Go - take the mother's soul, and learn three truths: Learn What dwells in man, What is not given to man, and What men live by. When thou hast learnt these things, thou shalt return to heaven.

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man.

History would be a wonderful thing - if it were only true.

Each religion is a brave guess at the authorship of Hamlet. Yet, as far as the play goes does it make any difference whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote it? Would it make any difference to the actors if their parts happened out of nothingness, if they found themselves acting on the stage because of some gross and unpardonable accident? Would it make any difference if the playwright gave them the lines or whether they composed them themselves, so long as the lines were properly spoken? Would it make any difference to the characters if A Midsummer Night's Dream was really a dream?

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it....

The man who assumes everything is a lie is at least as mistaken as the one who assumes everything is true.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Hinduism is a relentless pursuit of Truth. Truth is God and if today it has become moribund, inactive, irresponsive to growth, it is because we are fatigued; and as soon as the fatigue is over, Hinduism will burst upon the world with a brilliance perhaps unknown before.

Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

To believe in something, and not live it, is dishonest.

Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Whether humanity will consciously follow the law of love, I do not know. But that need not disturb me. The law will work just as the law of gravitation works, whether we accept it or not. The person who discovered the law of love was a far greater scientist than any of our modern scientists. Only our explorations have not gone far enough and so it is not possible for everyone to see all its workings.

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples - that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

Only laughter can blow [a colossal humbug] to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.

And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well - but 'tis not true!

Below the surface stream, shallow and light, Of what we say and feel - below the stream, As light, of what we think we feel, there flows With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we feel indeed.

I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.

Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese.

Christ said, 'The Truth shall make you free,' but Truth is not found once and forever. Truth is eternal, and the quest for Truth must also be eternal.

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.

These false answers - such as, I am stone, I am bird, I am animal, I am man, I am woman, I am great, I am small - are, in turn, received, tested and discarded until the Question arrives at the right and Final Answer, I AM GOD.

The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.

What do you despise? By this you are truly known.

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick.'

To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.

'No man -prince, peasant, pope, -has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. It is that liberty they fear. They want us to be driven to God like sheep, not running to him like lovers, shouting joy!'

'If God be God and man a creature made in image of the divine intelligence, his noblest function is the search for truth.'

Prejudice comes from being in the dark; sunlight disinfects it.

All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end.

There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow.

When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?'

And then he thought: is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

I felt that on a basis of a 'search for the miraculous' it would be possible to unite together a very large number of people who were no longer able to swallow the customary forms of lying and living in lying.

At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. If our own time were any different, that would be remarkable. As far as I can tell it isn't.

'Golf is a game in which you yell 'Fore!', shoot six, and write down five ...'