To speak the truth is the most difficult of all arts, for in its "pure" form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, or nations, truth is almost completely unsuitable for use by the Philistine and is unacceptable to him.
Interpretation
Speaking the truth is challenging because it often conflicts with personal and societal interests.
Maxim Gorky's quote highlights the inherent difficulty in speaking the truth, as it typically is not aligned with the desires of individuals or groups. In its purest form, truth can be seen as unpalatable to those who prioritize their own interests over an objective reality, illustrating the complex relationship between honesty and societal acceptance.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of integrity in journalism.
If it is true that only misfortune can awaken a man's soul, it is a bitter truth, one that is hard to hear and accept, and it is only natural that many people deny it and say it is better for a man to live on in a trance than to wake up to torture.
What I'd like is to meet a man I could take off my hat to and say: "Thank you for having got born, and the longer you live the better.
A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains.
Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.
Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments.
These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.
Song of God and Son of Man, there He hangs, bearing pains unutterable, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.
To narrate is to give oneself: it seems obvious that literature, as an effort to communicate fully, will continue to be blocked so long as misery and illiteracy exist, and so long as the possessors of power continue to carry on with impunity their policy of collective imbecilization through the mass media.
He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, 'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!
If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.
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