Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Truth
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“Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.”
Jean-Luc Godard (1930–2022) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Le Petit Soldat (film) (direction and screenplay, 1960)
“If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to defend it; and no truth appears to me more evident, than that beasts are endow'd with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant.”
David Hume (1711–1776) said by 1776 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November — on the third of November, to be precise — and I remember every instant since.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…”
Frank Zappa (1940–1993) said by 1993 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.”
Gautama Buddha (501–501 BC) said by 501 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why destroy aretê? And no sooner had he asked the question than the answer came to him. Plato hadn't tried to destroy aretê. He had encapsulated it; made a permanent, fixed Idea out of it; had converted it to a rigid, immobile Immortal Truth. He made aretê the Good, the highest form, the highest Idea of all. It was subordinate only to Truth itself, in a synthesis of all that had gone before.”
Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.”
Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All dies! and not alone The aspiring trees and men and grass; The poets’ forms of beauty pass, And noblest deeds they are undone, Even truth itself decays, and lo, From truth’s sad ashes pain and falsehood grow.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Lake", in Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville (1929), p. 350
“When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.”
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: November, 1933
“I died for Beauty – but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb, When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room – He questioned softly "Why I failed"? "For Beauty," I replied. "And I – for Truth, – Themself are One – We Brethren, are", He said –”
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) said by 1886 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first duty of the revolutionaries is to tell the truth. Fooling the people, promoting illusions, always brings the worst consequences, and I believe that the people should be warned against excessive optimism. How did the Red Army win the war? By telling the truth. How did the dictatorship lose the war? By deceiving the soldiers.”
Fidel Castro (1926–2016) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Camp Columbia, Havana (Jan. 8th, 1959), Fidel Castro Reader, pp. 133
“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.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes Truth may be, but 'tis not Here; mankind must seek and find it There, But Where nor I nor you can tell, nor aught earth-mother ever bare.Enough to think that Truth can be: come sit we where the roses glow, Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to 'unknow.'”
Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.”
Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) said by 1328 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation (1941) by Raymond Bernard Blakney, p. 240
“What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.”
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) first seen 1835 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A; this is considered to be one of the earliest statements of existentialist thought.
“The truth is a trap: you can not get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.”
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) first seen 1854 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1854
“It was a basic Confucian principle that "it is man who makes truth great, not truth which makes man great." For this reason, "humanness" or "human-heartedness" (jen) was always felt to be superior to "righteousness" (i), since man himself is greater than any idea which he may invent. There are times when men's passions are much more trustworthy than their principles.”
Alan Watts (1915–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) said by 1976 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where, I asked myself, picking up a notebook and a pencil, is truth?”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only those who have little need of the truth, and no respect for it — the poets and novelists — can be trusted to do it, for this is one of the cases where the truth does no exist. Nothing exists. The whole thing is a miasma — a mirage.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth about Kolchak (and his double, Denikin) has now been revealed in full. The shooting of tens of thousands of workers. The shooting even of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The flogging of peasants of entire districts. The public flogging of women. The absolutely unbridled power of the officers, the sons of landowners. Endless looting. Such is the truth about Kolchak and Denikin.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination of the heart.”
Salman Rushdie (born 1947) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Hindu (26 February 1995)
“Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How terribly hard and almost impossible it is to tell the truth. More than anything else, the artist in us prevents us from telling aught as it really happened. We deal with the truth as the cook deals with meat and vegetables.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Entry (1954)
“But in today’s world, when truth conflicts with narrative, it’s the truth that has to apologize. Being woke is like a magic moral time machine, where you judge everybody against what you imagine you would have done in 1066, and you always win.”
Bill Maher (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.”
Bill Hicks (1961–1994) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement written weeks before his death in 1994, as quoted in "Unseen Bill Hicks Clip" in Esquire (3 February 2014)
“In regard to man's final end, all the higher religions are in complete agreement. The purpose of human life is the discovery of Truth, the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. The degree to which this unitive knowledge is achieved here on earth determines the degree to which it will be enjoyed in the posthumous state. Contemplation of truth is the end, action the means.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.”
John Locke (1632–1704) first seen 1703 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Anthony Collins (29 October 1703)
“Wasn't that their natural right, to know the truth so as to be able to let the truth lead them to do good or evil, as they chose?”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the Greek conception of parrhesia... truth-having is guaranteed by the possession of... moral qualities... required... to know... and... convey such truth...”
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fiction", speech to the Royal Society of Literature, June 1926; published in Writings on Writing: Rudyard Kipling (1996), ed. Sandra Kemp and Lisa Lewis, p. 80
“I can never apologize for the truth. I don't mind apologizing for things but I can't apologize for the truth.”
Donald Trump (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The people who have sufficient passion for the truth to give the truth a chance to prevail, if it runs counter to their bias, are in a minority. How important is this "minority?" It is difficult to say at this point, for, at the present time their influence on governmental decisions is not perceptible.”
Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When people reject a truth or an untruth it is not because it is a truth or an untruth that they reject it. No, if it isn't in accord with their beliefs in the first place they simply say, "Nothing doing," and refuse to inspect it.”
Ogden Nash (1902–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What, given the circumstances, would have been Emphyrio’s course of action? Truth. Very well, thought Ghyl: it shall be Truth, and let the consequences fall where they may.”
Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Memorandum dated March 2003' in Steven Weisman ed., "Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary
“I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, "You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in Every Day a Word Surprises Me & Other Quotes by Writers by Phaidon (2018) with citation
“Birds...scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth. They know the truth. Screaming bloody murder all over the world in our ears, but sadly we don't speak bird. [p. 224]”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the Christian world to be sacred. Yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the truth, and by truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on an inner experience that bears witness to the truth, what is one to make of the many people who do not have that experience?”
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) said by 1939 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Necessary truth is merely the subject-matter of mathematics, not the reward we get for doing mathematics. The object of mathematics is not, and cannot be, mathematical certainty. It is not even mathematical truth, certain or otherwise. It is, and must be, mathematical explanation.”
David Deutsch (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.”
Charles Péguy (1873–1914) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lettre du Provincial" (21 December 1899)
“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail’ is merely a pious wish; history doesn’t show it.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We’ll never know the whole truth, I suppose,” said Venier. Was that supposed to be a concession? “You can be told the whole truth all day long, but if you won’t believe it, then no, I don’t suppose you ever will never know it.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book!”
Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press Conference, September 1 1992
“The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words that are clear; the great truth has great silence.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) said by 1941 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source