QuoteProject
No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie--or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?
H. G. Wells
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects on the nature of belief and storytelling, suggesting that truth can be subjective.

H. G. Wells' quote explores the idea that narratives, whether seen as truth or fiction, serve as vehicles for deeper contemplation about human existence and the future. It invites the audience to consider the significance of stories in shaping our understanding of reality and encourages critical thinking about the truths we accept, suggesting that every narrative has the potential to inspire thought, regardless of its origin.

Themes

BeliefStorytellingTruthFictionPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary discussion about the purpose of fiction, this quote can be used to illustrate the subjective nature of truth in storytelling.

More from H. G. Wells

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.
H. G. WellsRead
He spares no resource in telling of his dead inventions... Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the passing colloquialism into his service. His vast paragraphis sweat and struggle; the
H. G. WellsRead
It [a new world order] needs only that the governments of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Russia should get together in order to set up an effective control of currency, credit, production, and distribution – that is to say, an effective ‘dictatorship of prosperity,’ for the whole world. The other sixty odd States would have to join in or accommodate themselves to the over-ruling decisions of these major Powers.
H. G. WellsRead
Things that would have made fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily.
H. G. WellsRead
But I was too restless to watch long; I'm too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours - that's another matter.
H. G. WellsRead
The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast - is choice.
H. G. WellsRead

Similar quotes

God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.
Timothy KellerRead
During a chess tournament a master must envisage himself as a cross between an ascetic monk and a beast of prey.
Alexander AlekhineRead
The light that Yoga sheds on life is something special. It is transformative. It does not just change the way we see things; it transforms the person who sees.
B.K.S. IyengarRead
Some find Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran’s poetry preachy and moralizing, but I find it plenty enlightening—it’s hard to object to the melodic, cosmic of mysticism of a line like ‘That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.’
KhalilRead
Death comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling. It’s not so terrible she tells me, not like you think, all darkness and silence. There are windchimes and the smell of lemons, some days it rains, but more often the air is dry and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase built from hair and bone and listen to the voices of the living. I like it, she says, shaking the dust from her hair, especially when they fight, and when they sing.
Dorianne LauxRead
In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love. This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. Meditation is the ending of this space, the ending of the me.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.