"Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth."

Edward Abbey, US anarchist, author, essayist, and radical environmentalist (1927-1989)

"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not
to hear."

Herbert Sebastien Agar (1897-1980) The Time for Greatness, 1942
"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence."

Henri Frederic Amiel
"There are in fact four very significant stumblingblocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge."

Roger Bacon, (1220-1292) Source: Opus Majus, 1266-67
"Truths are first clouds; then rain, then harvest and food."

Henry Ward Beecher

"As scarce as the truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."

Josh Billings

"Think truly, and thy thoughts shall the world's famine feed.
Speak truly, and each word of thine shall be a fruitful seed.
Live truly, and thy life shall be a great and noble creed."

Horatius Bonar

"The theory of free speech, that truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs to hear everyone's account of it, is a theory which has been justified on the whole by experiment, but which remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory. It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern time."

G.K. Chesterton, from 'Robert Browning', 1914

"The Modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; but their truth is pitiless. And thus some humanitarians care only for pity; but their pity - I am sorry to say - is often untruthful."

G.K. Chesterton
"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on."

Winston Churchill 

"The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth."

William Jefferson Clinton, October 15, 1995

(Editorial comment: He not only said it, but he has put it into practice.)

"Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation, because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves."

Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) Lacon [1825], Vol 2, No. 108

"Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the nearest to us, for they contain our very thoughts, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to truth, and our persistent leaning toward error."

Joseph Conrad, (1857-1924) Source: Notes on Life and Letters 
"Man is a being born to believe. And if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of 
truth to guide him, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and his own 
imagination."

Benjamin Disraeli, Speech [25 Nov. 1864]
"Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the 
health of human society."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Prudence" from Essays: First Series [1841]

"A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes 
fiction."

William Faulkner
"Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor."

Robert Frost

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become 
error because nobody sees it."

Mohandas Gandhi
"Distinguished and discreet spokesmen for the government haven't changed all that much since Pontius Pilate, who left the definition of truth to others. It wasn't his area."

Paul Greenberg

"It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it."

A. A. Hodge

"A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."

Dresden James

"The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies."

Thomas Jefferson

"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth."

Joseph Joubert

"Justice is the truth in action."

Joseph Joubert

"It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be 
true."

Henry Kissinger
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is 
easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." 

Gustave Le Bon, (1841-1931) "The Crowd"

"The truth is this, the march of Providence is so slow, and our desire so impatient; the work of progress is so immense & our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long & that of an individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave, and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope."

Robert E. Lee

"It is a dreadful truth that the state of having to depend solely on God is what we all dread most.... It is good of Him to force us; but dear me, how hard to feel that it is good at the time."

C.S. Lewis, Dec. 6, 1955

"Peace if possible, but truth at any rate."

Martin Luther

"It is a fine thing to face machine guns for immortality and a medal, but isn't it a fine thing too, to face calumny, injustice and loneliness for the truth which makes men free?"

H. L. Mencken

"To die for an idea: it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true."

H. L. Mencken
 
"No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. When the secular is called in to 
sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is 
downright idiotic."
H. L. Mencken
 
"There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal 
experience has brought it home."

John Stuart Mill

"Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her water flow not in a perpetual progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition."

John Milton
"I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little 
more as I grow older."

Michel de Montaigne

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

George Orwell

"But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."

Thomas Paine

"There is no danger in giving up any error, or in embracing any truth. Forsaking truth, and embracing error, angels shrunk into devils. Forsaking error and grasping truth, sinners rise to the dignity of saints, and to the companionship of angels."

William Plumer

"Truth to Christ, can not be treason to Caesar"

Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex

"In war-time the word patriotism means suppression of truth."

Siegfred Sassoon, in 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'
"Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only 
saving the world when they slaughter the heretics."


Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1888-1965)
"We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
 
"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of 
truth outweighs the world."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Walden [1854], "Conclusion"
 
"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all 
that is not gold."

Leo Tolstoy
"Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use."

Mark Twain

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

Mark Twain

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."

Mark Twain

"Truth is more of a stranger than fiction."

Mark Twain

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to 
possibilities; Truth isn't."

Mark Twain
"One of the world's greatest problems is the impossibilty of any person searching for the truth on any subject when they believe they already have it."

Dave Wilbur

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