"Truth never was indebted to a lie"
About this Quote
Edward Young, the 18th-century poet of Night Thoughts, asserts that truth stands on its own feet. The image of debt is deliberate: a lie is pictured as a creditor from whom truth might borrow power or persuasion. Young refuses that transaction. If something is true, it does not need embellishment, concealment, or strategic distortion to prevail. Any apparent gain won by falsehood is not a gain for truth but a forfeiture of integrity that ultimately weakens the case.
The line speaks to a perennial temptation: to smuggle in a few convenient untruths to hurry along a good cause. Preachers dressing doctrine in fear, politicians spinning statistics, advocates cherry-picking evidence all claim to serve a noble end. Young answers that the means deforms the end. A lie corrodes the trust on which genuine persuasion depends, so even when a falsehood seems to win a hearing, it mortgages the very credibility that truth requires. Truth can use stories, analogies, and rhetoric, but not deceit; fiction openly signaled as such is a tool, while a lie is a poison.
Young wrote amid Enlightenment debates over reason, faith, and morality, where questions about the legitimacy of expediency were urgent. Night Thoughts turns again and again to the moral architecture of the universe, arguing that reality is stitched together by a moral law that cannot be outwitted. To say that truth owes nothing to a lie is to affirm that the order of things is coherent: ends and means are of a piece. The aphorism rebukes casuistry and the so-called pious fraud, insisting that what is true draws its force from reality itself.
The statement also offers a practical rule. In science, journalism, and public life, shortcuts that mislead may deliver speed but not solidity. Patience, clarity, and honesty are slower, but they build a foundation that does not collapse. Truth, properly told, carries its own authority and needs no counterfeit currency.
The line speaks to a perennial temptation: to smuggle in a few convenient untruths to hurry along a good cause. Preachers dressing doctrine in fear, politicians spinning statistics, advocates cherry-picking evidence all claim to serve a noble end. Young answers that the means deforms the end. A lie corrodes the trust on which genuine persuasion depends, so even when a falsehood seems to win a hearing, it mortgages the very credibility that truth requires. Truth can use stories, analogies, and rhetoric, but not deceit; fiction openly signaled as such is a tool, while a lie is a poison.
Young wrote amid Enlightenment debates over reason, faith, and morality, where questions about the legitimacy of expediency were urgent. Night Thoughts turns again and again to the moral architecture of the universe, arguing that reality is stitched together by a moral law that cannot be outwitted. To say that truth owes nothing to a lie is to affirm that the order of things is coherent: ends and means are of a piece. The aphorism rebukes casuistry and the so-called pious fraud, insisting that what is true draws its force from reality itself.
The statement also offers a practical rule. In science, journalism, and public life, shortcuts that mislead may deliver speed but not solidity. Patience, clarity, and honesty are slower, but they build a foundation that does not collapse. Truth, properly told, carries its own authority and needs no counterfeit currency.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
|---|
More Quotes by Edward
Add to List
