Famous Quotes & Sayings

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.

Gustave Flaubert

Everything which one invents is true, be sure of it.

Gustave Flaubert

There is no truth. There is only perception.

Greg Behrendt

We're taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side. Not in this case. In this case, assume rejection first. Assume you're the rule, not the exception. It's liberating. But we also know it's not an easy concept. -He's not just into you

Gilbert K. Chesterton

The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense for the man who tells the scandal, but does not tell the truth

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.

John Dryden

Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.

John Dryden

Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understanding is warped with enthusiasm.

John Dryden

I never saw any good that came of telling truth.

John Dryden

For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.

John Dryden

The longest tyranny that ever sway'd Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd Their free-born reason to the Stagirite [Aristotle], And made his torch their universal light. So truth, while only one suppli'd the state, Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.

John Dryden

We find few historians who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they help distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.

John Masefield

Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a ship of Truth In which his soul may sail- Sail on the sea of death. For death takes toll Of beauty, courage, youth, Of all but Truth.

John Locke

Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably, ought to be hearkened to. First, Whatever proposition is revealed, of whose truth our mind, by its natural faculties and notions, cannot judge, that is purely matter of faith, and above reason.

John Locke

Truth certainly would do well enough, if she were once left to shift for herself...She is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force, to procure her entrance into the minds of men.

John Locke

Truth then seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to signify nothing but the joining or separating of Signs, as the Things signified by them do agree or disagree one with another. The joining or separating of signs here meant, is what by another name we call proposition. So that truth properly belongs only to propositions: whereof there are two sorts, viz. mental and verbal; as there are two sorts of signs commonly made use of, viz. ideas and words.

John Locke

Crooked things may be as stiff and unflexible as streight: and Men may be as positive and peremptory in Error as in Truth.

John Locke

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

John Locke

Who lies for you will lie against you.

John Lennon

Nothing is real.

John Lennon

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.

John le Carre

I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

Jim Rohn

Don't be afraid to borrow if someone else has said it well. Winston Churchill said, The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. That's so well said. You could stay up all night and not think of that.

Jim Rohn

Sincerity is not a test of truth. We must not make this mistake: He must be right; he's so sincere. Because, it is possible to be sincerely wrong. We can only judge truth by truth and sincerity by sincerity.

George Lopez

I think we all feel the same things most of the time, we just don't know how to put it into words. When I'm on stage, I say it. The truth makes people laugh.

There is no truth whatever in these allegations.

I told them the truth and they thought it was a movie. Go figure. I'm just doing my job.

Glenn Beck

You've got to demand the truth from yourself.

Peter Ustinov

The truth is an ambition which is beyond us.

David Crosby

"It can't happen here" is number one on the list of famous last words.