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Truth

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“Let me tell you the truth. The truth is what is, and what should be is a fantasy. A terrible, terrible lie that someone gave to the people long ago.”
Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) said by 1966 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Paul Krassner in Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth (1998)
“CH: Have you told many fibs today? M: I lie a lot - it's really useful - but everything I've said today has been the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me... er... Trevor...”
Morrissey (born 1959) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Chris Heath, Star Hits (1987)
“Cinéma-vérité? I prefer 'cine-mendacity'. A lie is always more interesting than the truth...Fiction may have a greater truth than everyday, obvious reality.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fellini on Fellini (1976) edited by Anna Keel and Christian Strich; translated by Isabel Quigly.
“A person with no children says, "Well I just love children," and you say "Why?" and they say, "Because a child is so truthful, that's what I love about 'em — they tell the truth." That's a lie, I've got five of 'em. The only time they tell the truth is if they're having pain.”
Bill Cosby (born 1937) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No virtue ever was founded on a lie. The truth, then, at all risks and costs — the truth from the beginning. Make a clean breast to whomsoever you need to make it, and then — face the world.”
Dinah Craik (1826–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our weakness in the West is born of the fact of so-called "objectivity." Objectivity does not exist. The word is a hypocrisy which is sustained by the lie that the truth stays in the middle. No, sir: Sometimes truth stays on one side only.”
Oriana Fallaci (1929–2006) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Rage of Oriana Fallaci", in The New York Observer (27 January 2003)
“It's often been observed that the first casualty of war is the truth. But that's a lie, too, in its way. The reality is that, for most wars to begin, the truth has to have been sacrificed a long time in advance.”
L. Neil Smith (1946–2021) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Empire of Lies" Presented to the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 15 June 2003.
“Perhaps I did not succumb to ideology … because I have never seen myself as a spokesman. I am a witness. In the church in which I was raised you were supposed to bear witness to the truth. Now, later on, you wonder what in the world the truth is, but you do know what a lie is.”
James Baldwin (1924–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People can choose between the sweet lie or the bitter truth. I say the bitter truth, but many people don't want to hear it.”
Avigdor Lieberman (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her voice continued to echo in my ears, vibrating in my head, in the cell, in the prison, in the streets, in the whole world, shaking everything, spreading fear wherever it went, the fear of the truth which kills, the power of truth, as savage, and as simple, and as awesome as death, yet as simple and as gentle as a child that has not yet learnt to lie.”
Nawal El Saadawi (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.”
Brené Brown (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I tell a lie, something is left out; If I speak out the truth, there is a blaze. My mind fears both the alternatives, But haltingly my tongue speaks out. Words that come to my tongue cannot be held back. If I were to unravel the mysteries, All would forget to discuss and debate. They would then kill our friend Bullah, For only the hidden truth befits here.”
Bulleh Shah (1680–1757) said by 1757 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My belief is that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then becomes a lie. I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don't be Christian be Christ like. Don't be Buddhist be Buddha like.”
Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interviewed by Steve Ferrel, "Interview With Dr. Wayne Dyer" (Dec 14, 2005)
“Unvarnished truth, that truth which runs contrary to the vital needs of human nature, is worse than any lie. This is what Tolstoy thought when he wrote War and Peace, when he was still entirely possessed by Aristotle's ideas, when he was afraid of madness and the asylum and hoped that he would never have to live in an individual world of his own. p. 94”
Lev Shestov (1866–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is more dishonourable to God, then to offer a sin in sacrifice to Him, and nothing more incongruous in the nature of the thing, then that truth and falsehood should support each other, or that true doctrine should live at the charges of a lie.”
Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) first seen 1647 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Θεολογία Εκλεκτική: Of the Liberty of Prophesying (1647), Section 11
“While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Religion and Science (1935), Ch. IX: Science of Ethics.
“Truths … are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is true that most religions which have been offered me teach in mortality, but no the fashion in which they teach it. The surest way to lie convincingly is to tell the truth unconvincingly. They did not wish me to believe.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is true that most religions which have been offered me teach immortality, but note the fashion in which they teach it. The surest way to lie convincingly is to tell the truth unconvincingly. They did not wish me to believe.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth.”
Anthony Kennedy (born 1936) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012), Part IV.
“Now I would say that any honest earnest quest for truth must begin with the abandonment of faith. Are you prepared to lie in order to maintain your self-induced delusion? Or are you bold enough to question your own convictions and even test them to find out if they’re true, and discard them if they are not? That’s the rift. That’s the difference between us.”
Aron Ra (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A true and righteous person is not good in the eyes of everyone. Because this age is Kali's lie, suppressing his truth and calling him into darkness.”
Brajendra Chandra Deb (1932–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect wood-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I resent and revile [the word genocide]. The word is tidy and efficient. It holds no true emotion. It is impersonal when it needs to be intimate, cool and sterile when it needs to be gruesome. The word is hollow, true but disingenuous, a performance, the worst kind of lie.”
Clemantine Wamariya (born 1988) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.”
Julian Assange (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ris, it can’t tell the truth—it can’t distinguish between truth and lies. You know that. It uses words to manipulate people.”
Robert Charles Wilson (born 1953) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) said by 1970 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, — even though it be covertly, and by snatches.”
Herman Melville (1819–1891) said by 1891 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Since at least 1954 this has also been published at times as "Truth is forced to fly like a sacred white doe…", apparently a typographical error.
“Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said by 1519 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first of a thousand lies. Truth flowed to Micah Quill, was sucked in and disappeared, and emerged again looking ever so much like it used to, but changed subtly, at the edges, where none would notice, so that simple truth became a complicated fabric indeed, one that could wrap you up so tightly and close you off from the air until you suffocated in it.”
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the odd thing in Dad’s voice was the sound truth makes being said. The sound of truth, in a wild roving land of city or plain country lies, will spell any boy.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An Aes Sedai never lies, but the truth she speaks, may not be the truth you think you hear.”
Robert Jordan (1948–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not, then, in the content or substance of folly that its difference from truth lies, but in where it comes from. It comes not from ‘the wise man’s mouth’ but from the mouth of the subject assumed not to know and speak the truth.”
J. M. Coetzee (born 1940) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Erasmus: Madness and Rivalry,” Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (1996), p. 94
“There are bound to be some lies here, but I’ve been telling them so long they’ve become truth, my truth, as close as I can get to what really happened.”
Craig Ferguson (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“T*Truth: “Truth means that which actually is, as opposed to lies, incorrect beliefs, fantasies or foolishness, and exists independently of thinkers.”
Malcolm Azania (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.”
Michael Haneke (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is in the total conduct of men rather than in their statements that truth or falsehood lives, more in what a man does, in his real reaction to other men and to things, in his will to do them justice, to live at one with them. Here lies the inner connection between truth and justice. In the realm of behavior and action, the problem recurs as to the difference between piece and part.”
Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 28 (1961 edition)
“Moving with frequency between the polarities of my experience is a fertile source of ideas. Somewhere between anguish and joy lies a region taut with further contradictions. If art speaks truth to power then in my view both compelling forces need to be addressed. The desolate truth carried in profundity is made even more striking when matched by the sublime energy of the decorative.”
Brian Clarke (1953–2025) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Clarke in 2010, from the Vitromusée Romont publication Brian Clarke: Life and Death.
“If you do not speak your truth, the Lies will become your truth”
Burna Boy (born 1991) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies. (Or, for that matter, as true.)”
John Hodgman (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.”
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) said by 1799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A News-monger is a Retailer of Rumour, that takes up upon Trust, and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a perishable Commodity, that will not keep: for if it be not fresh it lies upon his Hands, and will yield nothing. True or false is all one to him; for Novelty being the Grace of bothe, a Truth grows stale as soon as a Lye...”
Samuel Butler (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works.”
Stephen Colbert (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we walk away from communion with the Church, what are we saying to the Jesus Who entrusted His words and His sacraments to her bishops and saints? Has His promise to be with His Church to the end of the world ceased to be true? Can He Who is The Truth be entangled in a tissue of lies?”
Liam Cary (born 1947) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Dark Sea of Scandal (October 7, 2018)
“Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most successful.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.”
Milan Kundera (1929–2023) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Harold Bloom, Milan Kundera (2003), [//books.google.it/books?id=SXDojRJFMPIC&pg=PA91 p. 91]
“The measure of a company's true success lies in its unwavering commitment to ethical principles and social responsibility. True success, we profess, in ethics and responsibility, we bless, creating a legacy to impress.”
Kuruvilla Pandikattu (born 1957) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But Joenes then made a speech which was a beauty, and I cannot recall it word for word, but the idea was that laws are made by man and thus must partake of the evil nature of man, and that true morality lies in following the true dictates of the illuminated soul. “A Commie, huh?” said the lead cop.”
Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give, Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; And vice sometimes by action dignified.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) said by 1616 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source