Quotes on Truth

I believe in broken, fractured, complicated narratives, but I believe in narratives as a vehicle for truth, not simply as a form of entertainment, though I love entertainment, but also a way of conveying what needs to be conveyed about the works that I care about.

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.

Truth and non-violence are not cloistered virtues but applicable as much in the forum and the legislatures as in the market place.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth.

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

Enormous numbers of people are taken in, or at least beguiled and fascinated, by what seems to me to be unbelievable hocum, and relatively few are concerned with or thrilled by the astounding-yet true-facts of science, as put forth in the pages of, say, Scientific American.

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.

Truth uttered before its time is dangerous.

Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.

All writing is the same: It's just making up lies until it starts to sound like the truth. That's what I do.

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the myth of Orpheus; it moves stones, and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.

Honour belongs to those who never forsake the truth even when things seem dark and grim, who try over and over again, who are never discouraged by insults, humiliation and even defeat.

Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

Fiction is a lie that is told in the service of truth.

This simple truth is the essence of my message to Muslims throughout the world: know who you are, who you want to be, and start talking and working with whom you are not. Find common values and build with fellow citizens a society based on diversity and equality.

The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world.

The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.