Philosophy & Thought: Truth Quotes

"Though we explore in a culturally-conditioned way, the reality we sketch is universal"

John Charles Polanyi, Scientist

"For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest"

John Charles Polanyi, Scientist

"Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction"

Carol Alt, Model

"Being offended is part of being in the real world"

Courtney Love, Musician

"One can hardly be Indian and not know that almost every accent, which hand you eat your food with, has some deeper symbolic truth, reality"

Anish Kapoor, Artist

"Someone needs to tell the truth, but it shouldn't be my job"

Thom Yorke, Musician

"The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling"

Robert M. Pirsig, Philosopher

"One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous"

Robert M. Pirsig, Philosopher

"It is a puzzling thing. 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, Philosopher

"Let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won"

Louisa May Alcott, Novelist

"To tell the truth is revolutionary"

Antonio Gramsci, Politician

"The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth"

Edith Sitwell, Poet

"The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves"

Edith Sitwell, Poet

"Any euphemism ceases to be euphemistic after a time and the true meaning begins to show through. It's a losing game, but we keep on trying"

Joseph Wood Krutch, Environmentalist

"Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend"

William Cowper, Poet

"Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility"

Hu Shih, Philosopher

"This is not a sham, not a game. This is the real stuff"

Marion Barry, Politician

"Nothing exists except through language"

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosopher

"The questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do"

Sam Donaldson, Journalist

"Whatever one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true in one's mind"

Gene Fowler, Journalist

"Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts"

Philip Roth, Novelist

"There is an element of truth in every idea that lasts long enough to be called corny"

Irving Berlin, Musician

"History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth"

E. L. Doctorow, Author

"This is my truth, tell me yours"

Aneurin Bevan, Politician

"The focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror"

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosopher

"A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason"

J. P. Morgan, Businessman

"It is easier to believe than to doubt"

Gene Fowler, Journalist

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth"

Umberto Eco, Novelist

"A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams"

Umberto Eco, Novelist

"Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth"

Umberto Eco, Novelist

"When applied to politics and taken to its extreme, kitsch is the mask of death. Fascism was all aesthetics. There was no core principle to it. There was no truth to it"

John Cusack, Actor

"Understanding the laws of nature does not mean that we are immune to their operations"

David Gerrold, Writer

"The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information"

Christopher Lasch, Historian

"News represents another form of advertising, not liberal propaganda"

Christopher Lasch, Historian

"It is advertising and the logic of consumerism that governs the depiction of reality in the mass media"

Christopher Lasch, Historian

"George Orwell's contention was that it is a sure sign of trouble when things can no longer be called by their right names and described in plain, forthright speech"

Christopher Lasch, Historian

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect"

Jiddu Krishnamurti, Philosopher

"I also focus on Bush and his administration - who do a lot of lying - and how a right-wing media has allowed them to get away with a lot of stuff that, in a different media environment, they probably wouldn't be able to get away with"

Al Franken, Comedian

"But in the right-wing media, they do have a right-wing bias. And they also have an agenda. So their agenda is: we're an adjunct of the Republican Party, and we're going push that agenda every day, and, as you say, brand these stories that help further the right-wing cause"

Al Franken, Comedian

"What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup"

Boris Pasternak, Novelist

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