c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Art does not exist only to entertain -- but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for the truth.
— Barbra Streisand
Where else, but from the industrialized world, did the suicide hijackers learn that the huge explosions and death above a city skyline are a peculiar and effective form of communication? They have mastered the language.
— Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
False judges are held up in the world’s admiration and I alone know the true ones.
— Albert Camus, The Fall
But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awful truth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city and the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat's Cradle
People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn't buy every one.
— Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling
Storytellers seldom let facts get in the way of perpetuating a legend, although a few facts add seasoning and make the legend more believable.
— John H. Alexander
There must be repressed truth even in lies.
— Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, The Madman and the Nun: and Other Plays
Time turns our lies into truths.
— Gene Wolfe, Shadow & Claw
You know, a few months ago, I made a terrible mistake. I realized something, and instead of crushing the thought the moment it came I... I let it hang on, and now I know it to be true. And I'm afraid it's stuck in my head forever. These are the best days of our lives. It's a terrible thing to know, but I know it.
— Richard Curtis
I prefer truth-based entertaining idealism.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
The human mind is not a dignified organ, and I do not see how we can exercise it sincerely except through eclecticism. And the only advice I would offer my fellow eclectics is: "Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.
— E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel
Aye me, how many perils do enfoldThe righteous man, to make him daily fall?Were not, that heavenly grace doth him uphold,And steadfast truth acquite him out of all.
— Edmund Spenser, Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves
This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God?
— David Ford
Thoreau was an idiot.
— Bill Bryson
To utter a word? no that will only heavy the air you breath, for your eyes speak more then your pretty mouth
— William Brade
Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, 'Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.' Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer.
— Jeff Rice, The Night Stalker
I don't want to base my life on a symbol," he said resolutely. "I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality. What's not rooted in reality is the faith of liberal scholars. They're the ones who are following a pipe dream, but Christianity is not a pipe dream.
— Gregory A. Boyd
Millennias old lies can be gradually accepted as truth.This is the real ultimate power of historical engineering.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
This life is our shared dream.We all may meet again in reality.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
A good speech is like a miniskirt--long enough to over all the vital parts, short enough to entice and captivate listeners.
— Naa Shalman
History engineered if the facts couldn't be generally accepted.
— Toba Beta
We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century - the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?" - lies where we have never suspected it... None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.
— C.S. Lewis, On the Incarnation
The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners...
— Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope's pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar: without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue; if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammed, for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports. He cared not for the dressings of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life." 
— R. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism
Sometimes it is harder to accede to a thing than it is to see its truth.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations
The whole of world history often seems to me nothing more than a picture book which portrays humanity's most powerful and a senseless desire - the desire to forget. Does not each generation, by means of suppression, concealment, and ridicule, efface what the previous generation considered most important?
— Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East
The truth sticks in our throats with all the sauces it is served with: it will never go down until we take it without any sauce at all.
— George Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan
I did not know then what Brother William was seeking, and to tell the truth, I still do not know today, and I presume he himself did not know, moved as he was solely by the desire for truth, and by the suspicion - which I could see he always harbored - that the truth was not what was appearing to him at any given moment.
— Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Indeed a lie is often more plausible than the truth. "Almost" always. The truth, of course, is never very plausible.
— Fyodor Sologub, Little Demon (Literary Monuments) / Melkiy Bes
It is impossible to exercise free will as long as we are operating from within the system. Free will requires consciousness, and our pervasive and deep-seated patterns of thought are unconscious; they are outside of our awareness and therefore outside of our control. While we remain in the system, we see the world through the eyes of carnism. And as long as we look through eyes other than our own, we will be living in accordance to a truth that is not of our own choosing. We must step outside the system to find our lost empathy and make choices that reflect what we truly feel and believe, rather than what we've been taught to feel and believe.
— Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism: The Belief System That Enables Us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others
In all of knowable reality, God is unique. He is knowable not like the multiplication table or the table of elements; he alone is knowable as the one totally in control of being known. He is not at the disposal of the human mind. He is known when he wills to be known. Yet he is known in and through created reality, which is known naturally. Therefore the glory of God is exalted most not when we know God apart from observation and reading and study, but when we know God as a result of his free and gracious self-revelation in and through our earnest observation of and meditation on his work and Word in history.
— John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God
Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence — either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous ‘embarkation’ and heroic conquest, or else to annihilate the persona and transcend the ego in an obscure rapture of sensuality, a frenzy of romantic passion, more creditably, in the mutual charity of the perfect marriage.
— Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun
Sing and rejoice ye children of the day and the light; for the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt: and the Truth doth flourish as the rose, and lilies do grow among the thorns and the plants atop the hills, and upon them the lambs doth skip and play.
— George Fox, The Journal of George Fox
Cruel', O'Kelly laughed, 'it's cruel to tell children the truth. If anything convinces me of God's mercy, then it's his gift of making us unable to lie.
— Yevgeny Zamyatin, Islanders And, The Fisher Of Men
There can be, if I forebode aright, no power, short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. Nor have I so read or interpreted the Holy Writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as part of the retribution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. No; these revelations, unless I greatly error, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. A knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solution of that problem. And I conceive, moreover, that the hearts holding such secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered which can seldom be fitted into creeds that are changeless.
— Clarence Day Jr.
Math. It’s your favorite subject. Which surprises you. Last year your teacher tried to convince you that you had a real “aptitude” for math, but all you got in the end was a B minus. The truth is you weren’t even trying. But then you got low Cs and Ds in all your other classes and you weren’t trying there, either, so maybe you are good at math after all. 	You like it because either you’re right or you’re wrong. Not like social studies and definitely not like English, where you always have to explain your answers and support your opinions. With math it’s right or it’s wrong and you’re done with it. But even that’s changing, my teacher said now you have to explain how you solved the problem and support your answer, saying that having the right answer isn’t as important as explaining how you got it and bam, just like that, you hate math.
— Charles Benoit, You
Memory is a sly devil that pretends to wear the cloak of truth, but deceives us both in our youth and our age.
— Harley King
The truth is not believable to someone who has not lived it in his muscles.
— Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak
Since history is not an objective reality, but only an imaginative reconstruction of vanished events, the pattern that appears useful and agreeable to one generation is never entirely so to the next.
— Carl Lotus Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers
You are going to die like a dog for no good reason
— Ernest Hemingway
...the wise words of a friend and guide rang in my head. 'How would you distinguish a true servant of God from a traitor?...You should take especial notice of how a person speaks, not of other things, but of God.
— Harry Blamires, Highway To Heaven
If words are the truth, what is living for?
— Marty Rubin
Perhaps a physicist would know at once why this whole idea was absurd. But then, perhaps a physicist would be so locked into the consensus of his scientific community that it would be harder for him to accept an idea that transformed the meaning of everything he knew. Even if it were true.
— Orson Scott Card
God was never created the economy.Men found it after banished from Eden.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
The striving of humanity for knowledge and truth [can] not be suppressed. The growth of the spirit [is]an essential part of Creation; it was planned like the growth of the body, of the plants and animals and people - every living thing that God had created.
— Peter Prange, The Philosopher's Kiss
Humans are about to grasp basic substances of all creations. When that moment comes, life or death are no longer matters.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Tudo parecia organizado da melhor forma possível, como se de fato o mundo constasse somente de palavras, como se assim o próprio horror fosse trazido para dimensões seguras, como se para cada aspecto de uma coisa houvesse um reverso, para cada mal um bem, para cada dissabor um prazer, para cada infelicidade uma felicidade e para cada mentira um quinhão de verdade.
— W.G. Sebald, Vertigo
I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked.""We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Doubt is a creature within the air. It grows when someone hesitates.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
We don’t exhaust the Bible even after reading it hundreds of times. Each time we read it we see it in a new light. That is the greatness of the holy scriptures. They are that way because they were created by holy prophets who experienced the truth. Each time we read these works we elevate ourselves to see a little more. (81)
— Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras
What I believe to be true I must therefore preserve. What seems to me so obvious, even against me, I must support.
— Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
There are objects made up of two sense elements, one visual, the other auditory—the colour of a sunrise and the distant call of a bird. Other objects are made up of many elements—the sun, the water against the swimmer's chest, the vague quivering pink which one sees when the eyes are closed, the feeling of being swept away by a river or by sleep. These second degree objects can be combined with others; using certain abbreviations, the process is practically an infinite one. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word, a word which in truth forms a poetic object, the creation of the writer. The fact that no one believes that nouns refer to an actual reality means, paradoxically enough, that there is no limit to the numbers of them.
— Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones
...there is therefore now no condemnation for two reasons: you are dead now; and God, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, has been dead all along. The blame game was over before it started. It really was. All Jesus did was announce that truth and tell you it would make you free. It was admittedly a dangerous thing to do. You are a menace. Be he did it; and therefore, menace or not, here you stand: uncondemned, forever, now. What are you going to do with your freedom?
— Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
We speak the truth because we live in truth.
— José Luis Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery
There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth.
— Dorothy   Thompson
The other side of the "sacred" is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots.
— Gary Snyder, Practice of the Wild
This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the year and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration.
— Pope Paul VI
We should've been different breeds. There can only be one lion in a small cage. It's not important if the other lion is sleeping or crouching in the corner. The only important thing is that...it's a lion.
— Seyoung Kim, Boy Princess, Volume 2
I am no faint-heart when it comes to the unpleasant truth. Indeed I have always taken a bracing sort of pleasure in facing it.
— Jude Morgan, Indiscretion
The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not be admissible in any field of science... This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.
— Max Born
The truth stinks. Thus it's covered.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
I learned regret in the ruins of Tarbfhlaith. I regretted that ambition had ruled my heart instead of affection for my kin. And with the lesson of regret came the gratitude for having life still to move my lips and limbs, and to speak kind words to and embrace those I may not see again on this sweet-smelling earth. I learned that I cannot wait to love what is in my presence, for it or I may well be gone tomorrow. To some, such as Giannon, this lesson poisons the heart with bitterness. But such bitterness has no value and is, in fact, cowardly. For bitterness risks nothing.
— Kate Horsley, Confessions of a Pagan Nun
Truth resists being projected into the realm of knowledge.
— Walter Benjamin, Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings
Vivi muito tempo no mundo das pessoas grandes. Vi-as de bem perto.Não fiquei com muito melhor opinião delas.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince
Only after you've done the exorcism, thenyou'll understand that ghost's also a species.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
The truth of the matter was something much more subtle and tremendous than any plain physical miracle could ever be. But never mind that. The important thing was that, when I did see the stars (riotously darting in all directions according to the caprice of their own wild natures, yet in every movement confirming the law), the whole tangled horror that had tormented me finally presented itself to me in its truth and beautiful shape. And I knew that the first, blind stage of my childhood had ended.
— Olaf Stapledon, Odd John
Lead us toward a speech, which is as beautiful as silence, and toward a silence, which is as beautiful as the sweetest and truest of words. (119)
— Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity
Smartass Disciple: What were you thinking when the truth is revealed unto you?Master of Stupidity: I wasn't thinking. I was having sex when it came to my mind.
— Toba Beta
If you believe in something because of miracles, then another kind of miracles can make you deny it.
— Toba Beta
Eyes can't sense a smell of rain before it drops.Mind can't see event of future before it happens.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Smartass Disciple: Master, I don’t need a fairytale.I need you to tell me the truth. Master of Stupidity: It is not funny if you just found it. No drama if no lost at first.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
I do not say words, which you want to hear.The words just told me, to write them down.
— Toba Beta
Smartass Disciple: Master, I believe that the truth will prevail at the end.Master of Stupidity: No 'the end' for the truth. 'Prevail' is something else.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Smartass Disciple: What were said for things before the time exist?Master of Stupidity: No words to be said by no man at no time at all.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
Smartass Disciple	: Master, why you keep telling about the truth? Nobody hears.Master of Stupidity	: O Yea. They hear but don't listen. Anyway, no fun in silent.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
Luz's manner of speaking made it clear that she had no idea what she might say next. It wasn't that she made things up, strictly speaking--only that facts were merely a point of departure for her.
— Daniel Alarcón
Colonel: Tell me what is the T.R.U.T.H, Doctor!Doctor: Total.Reveal.Using.Therapeutic.Hologram
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
— William O. Douglas
Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you-Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world:A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.When Buddha finished this Discourse the venerable Subhuti, together with the bhikshus, bhikshunis, lay-brothers and sisters, and the whole realms of Gods, Men and Titans, were filled with joy by His teaching, and, taking it sincerely to heart they went their ways.
— Gautama Buddha, Diamond Sutra
Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced more true than truth itself.
— Irenaeus of Lyons
Error is indeed our enemy, but it alone points to the truth and therefore deserves our respectful treatment.
— Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Prawda jest córą czasu poczętą w przypadkowym i krótkotrwałym romansie ze zbiegiem okoliczności.
— Andrzej Sapkowski, Lux perpetua
No one knows for sure about the future. But if you feel reluctant to plan something about it, then someone with guts would define it for you.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Sometimes a clearly defined error is the only way to discover the truth
— Benjamin Wiker, The Mystery of the Periodic Table
...the best way to know the Truth or Beauty is to try to express it. And what is the purpose of existence Here or Yonder but to discover truth and beauty and express it, i.e., share it with others?
— Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
I can see how I could write a bold account of myself as a passionate man who rose from humble beginnings to cut a wide swath in the world, whose crimes along the way might be written off to extravagance and love and art, and could even almost believe some of it myself on certain days after the sun went down if I’d had a snort or two and was in Los Angeles and it was February and I was twenty-four, but I find a truer account in the Herald-Star, where it says: “Mr. Gary Keillor visited at the home of Al and Florence Crandall on Monday and after lunch returned to St. Paul, where he is currently employed in the radio show business… Lunch was fried chicken with gravy and creamed peas”.
— Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days
When the dead departed, they took away any falsehoods that they might have allowed us to believe while alive; we who are left behind have to embark on a different life, since the dead are no longer here to help us deceive ourselves.
— Yiyun Li
The truth of course was otherwise, but Lecha had never felt she owed anyone the truth, unless it was truth about their own lives, and then they had to pay her to tell them.
— Leslie Marmon Silko, Almanac of the Dead
There's no guarantee of disaster-free in any world religion,but love, faith and knowledge give men hope and willpower.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Books do pretend ...but squeezed in between is even more that is true—without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
— Matthew Pearl, The Last Dickens
If you seek for supreme predator, go find God. He hunts the prime killer of mankind, the Satan.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Both the thoughts and the senses were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them... from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
There are people who desperately want to change the world. I wonder if it could be measured, because the world is already in the state of continuously change since the beginning of time. Or they may just want their names etched nicely on men history.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
He knows what lies before them, and what is after them, and they comprehend not anything of His knowledge save such as He wills.' i traced the words with my finger, over and over again, and realize what i did not before. that not all questions can be answered. that some truths are beyond the capacity of our minds to understand.
— Nafisa Haji
Righteousness is the truth revealed and working in you.
— Sherry K. White, Walking in the Father's Riches: The Prosperity of Sonship
Deep down, everyone wants the truth.
— Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide
People usually feel funny, smile and laugh when I tell them about my strong belief in the very existence of prehistoric advanced technology and great civilizations of wilier races. I just can't wait to see their faces at time the truth is revealed.
— Toba Beta
We are often jealous of our little secrets, though to another ear they generally convey neither profit nor entertainment.
— Eden Phillpotts, A Shadow Passes
The wheel of life has many spokes yet so few people ever leave the hub.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
So you didn’t tell me it was a messed-up idea to keep this all a secret because. . .” Because experience is the only teacher,” Hey-Soos says. “Even if I could have told you, it would have been a lecture. Why do you think kids don’t listen to their parents, or people don’t leave churches and do what the preacher tells them? There’s only one thing that’s universal.” What’s that?” The truth.
— Chris Crutcher, Deadline
There is no UFO and also there is no alien, at least not in common mind nor reference.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Take away health, wealth, and material success and all you have is each other. Maybe that's the place we should start.
— Charles Herrick, Breath of Kenya: A Missionary Journal
Smartass Disciple: Master, why God let human did sins in the beginning?Master of Stupidity: If the saviour must come, why should He prevent that?
— Toba Beta
It wasn't science and technology that cause a slow progress, but collective knowledge of the society and market demands.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Smartass Disciple: Please teach me about the truth, master.Master of Stupidity: Hmmm...tell me about your sexperience!
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Nothing is build, just like that, everything around the world has some value and the purpose.
— Santosh Kalwar, Nature God
Once upon a time in the land of Shinar, God came down to see the city and the tower. People were united and spoke in one language. Then God confound their language and caused them scattered all over the planet earth. I believe, because of our technology, there will be one computer-based language on earth. Then God will come back again and make us all scattered all over the stars constellation.
— Toba Beta
Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.
— Edwin Hubbell Chapin
The thing about memories wasn't that many of them inevitably faded, but that repeated recall of the ones you remembered burnished them into shining, gorgeous lies
— Dexter Palmer, Version Control
Es gibt immer einen Punkt dabei, wo man nicht mehr weiß, ob man lügt oder ob das, was man erfunden hat, wahrer ist als man selber.
— Robert Musil, The Confusions of Young Törless
Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
— Charles McCabe
He, who thought it necessary to maintain himself in her good graces, strove to console her under her disappointment by committing a little violence upon truth.
— Matthew      Lewis, The Monk
We reach in desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human face. London is religions opportunity--not the decorous religion of theologians, but an anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not anyone pompous or tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.
— E.M. Forster, Howards End
Questions of absolute good and evil are much better not opened to public debate these days, when so few people are sure of their absolutes
— Sidney Howard
For it is our most secret desire that governs and dominates all. If your eyes look for nothing but evil, you will always see evil triumphant; but if you have learned to let your glance rest on sincerity, simpleness, truth, you will ever discover, deep down in all things, the silent overpowering victory of that which you love.
— Maurice Maeterlinck, Wisdom And Destiny
History is a better guide than good intentions.
— Jeane Kirkpatrick
Boshafte Wahrheiten sind nur dann gut, wenn kein Fremder sie liest.
— Mikhail Sholokhov, Der stille Don
You have to be transparent so you no longer cast a shadow but instead let the light pass through you.
— Kamand Kojouri
It doesn't matter what you think about consciousness, higher truths, or different dimensions - it's what you do and what you are that counts.
— Belsebuub
Was man wünscht, das glaubt auch jeder.
— Demosthenes
People hide truths about themselves from themselves. Such self-deception is a coping mechanism, and to one extent or another, most people begin deceiving themselves when they're children.
— Dean Koontz, Ashley Bell
The principles you know determines what you get
— Sunday Adelaja
Blessings always come in the silence of learning at the hand of God
— John M Sheehan
We all have a soul family, the ones that ignite and support our truth. They feed something in us we weren't aware we needed before them. They'll make you face yourself and become raw and authentic. You'll roam but never too far from eachother for the invisible thread of connectedness; once opened can never be locked. They are the ones who will see you through all the important days of your life no matter what tributes and trials you face. They'll just be there, in presence, in synchronicity or in spirit.
— Nikki Rowe
It takes courage to become authentic. So many talk about the light but not enough speak the truth about the struggles it takes to get there and the tools to overcome it all.
— Nikki Rowe
Be honest. This applies to every area of your life. Sketchiness is not an attractive trait. No more trying to cover up your baggage, sweeping things under the rug, withholding truth, blatant lying, or even telling seemingly ‘harmless’ white lies or half-truths – release the need to lie completely! Start NOW.
— Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace
Civilization is a myth. That is the truth this world has taught us. We have not risen above our baser instincts... That is what always has and always will drive us.
— Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, Vol. 26: Call to Arms
THREE BASIC TRUTHSThree things have a limited threshold: Time, pain, and death.While truth, love, and knowledge –Are boundless.Three things are needed For humanity to co-exist:Truth, peace and basic needs.Everything else -Is irrelevant.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
A conscious human is driven by their conscience, not popular opinion.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Those who scorn you taunt only themselves -- I knew this without reading one word
—  because in reading one is reminded of the truth man is given at birth -- by man I mean man and woman.
Too much study wears the body. BUT the truth refreshes the soul, sustains the spirit for a beautiful body.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Making love with strangers is how you get hurt.
— Dominic Riccitello
If you do not have control over your mouth, you will not have control over your future.
— Germany Kent
Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air,new lights and new truths to enter.
— Amit Ray, Walking the Path of Compassion
Don't be so loyal to your mind
—  the mind is not loyal to You.
People often associate complexity with deeper meaning, when often after precious time has been lost, it is realized that simplicity is the key to everything.
— Gary   Hopkins
A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Your mind can be your enemy or friend. If you always follow your heart, your mind will feel neglected. If you follow only your mind, your heart will never forgive you. Never ignore your conscience, yet always be conscious of reason. Make your heart and mind friends and you will have peace of mind throughout life's seasons.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
You have to understand yourself before you can understand anything else.
— Amy Zhang, This Is Where the World Ends
Claiming to love self, but willingly default to cheating at the first sign of trouble is nothing short of playing yourself. Your ego may feel avenged - temporarily - but your heart and soul, the true self, will suffer the long term affects of karma's justifiable sting.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
Most people live their lives laying prostrate before a false god, waiting for a cue to rise. There are no cues, only decisions. Shall I have dessert? Shall I have the best of the wine? Shall I love the person next to me? They can all be brought to your table. Rise, I say, rise and look within to the truth, to the light, and tell it your decision.
— Lawren Leo, Love's Shadow: Nine Crooked Paths
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
— George Gordon Byron, Manfred
Always be truthful and you will have fewer visits from regret, guilt or fear.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
...how horrible and beautiful it is, that our eyes blur the truth when we can't bear to see it.
— Juliette
Oh, Sweetie. No one ever gets through their TBR list. For every book you finish, you'll add five more. That's just the way it works.
— Leisa Rayven, Wicked Heart
Being in a relationship with some people is like pushing a boat through sand. I used to have the time and energy for that kind of nonsense, but not anymore. Relationships should be a wonderful journey of exploration and love; not grinding resistance.
— Steve Maraboli
(after many years) we were still at that first stage, stillpreparing to begin a journey, but we were changed nevertheless;we could see this in one another; we had changed althoughwe never moved, and one said, ah, behold how we have aged, travelingfrom day to night only, neither forward nor sideward, and this seemedin a strange way miraculous. And those who believed we should have a purposebelieved this was the purpose, and those who felt we must remain freein order to encounter truth felt it had been revealed.
— Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night
She had said he had been driven away from her by a dream,--and there was no answer one could make her--there seemed to be no forgiveness for such a transgression.And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion. And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?
— Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
There is no such thing as fear until you allow it to enter your heart. If I told you what really happens to your soul when it is put to eternal sleep, you would not fear death; hence, you would never have fear — or fear Fear. But this is something I will share with you another day and time, in another story. We are taught to fear anything that can bring us closer to death — to keep us from taking huge leaps that involve risk. The only thing you should fear in this lifetime is not taking risks while you are living. I do not mean to go jump off a bridge. I mean, to go all out to reach your dreams, to dare to do things you typically would not do out of fear. Pain has a threshold and so does death. Fear neither, and never fear what has no right to be feared. Fear only the Almighty, for he is the only one who can terminate a soul forever. No man can do that. No leader can do that. Only the Creator can do that. As long as the heart is good, a soul can live forever. The body is simply a coating for the soul, and when you die, your soul takes the soul of your heart along with it. Love strengthens both, while fear cripples both. Starting today, train your mind and heart to reject fear. Once you reject fear, you will become the perfect candidate to receive and reflect Truth.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion. And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?
— Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
The truth which sets men free is the truth which most men fear to accept.
— Amit Abraham
Truths are dangerous," he said."Then why are you writing them in a book?""To catch them between the pages," said Teddy, "and trap them before they disappear.
— Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue
Truthfulness is a luxury, perhaps the greatest, and let me assure you, the most expensive luxury in our life—and happy the man who has been able to enjoy it from his very child hood.
— Friedrich Max Müller, India: What it Can Teach Us
No truth, no light.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
It's not getting it right the first time--it's learning to do it right and then not getting lazy.
— Susan Mallery, Three Little Words
I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day.
— Marcel Proust
Finally, finally, this is what bravery looks like. This is what courage looks like. It has nothing to do with dominating the day, every single day. It has to do with showing up and speaking truth. One true sentence after one true sentence.
— Hannah Brencher, If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers
... Error, by force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth...
— Marcel Proust, Swann's Way
You must feed yourself the truth because the world is sure to serve you lies.
— Serina Hernandez
Knowing the Truth is not based on knowledge, but on being "it".
— Vivian Amis
I was well aware how famously or infamously secretive these old institutions can be, no more than ourselves, a mixture of worry, lost power, perhaps even concern. That the truth may not always be desirable, that one thing leads to another thing, that facts not only lead forward to resolution, but backwards into the shadows, and sometimes into the various little hells we make for each other.
— Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture
Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God’s help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires.
— Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion
Your personal truth is your gift to the world.
— Jennifer Elisabeth
You never know who you're inspiring or uninspiring. People notice more than you think.
— Amaka Imani Nkosazana
Never settle for half the story, and make-up and imagine the rest. Get the full Story!
— RYCJ
I’m in no hurry: the sun and the moon aren’t, either.Nobody goes faster than the legs they have.If where I want to go is far away, I’m not there in an instant.(6/20/1919)
— Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
I pass and I stay, like the Universe.
— Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep
Everything’s different from us. That’s why everything exists.
— Alberto Caeiro, Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa,: Including Poems by His Heteronyms: Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis [And] Alvaro de Campos, as Well as Some of His Eng
I don't like the way people cherish the ghetto, as if it’s some royal palace, or kingdom. I also don't like the way people treat each other in the ghetto. It is really hard to find love, trust, and respect. You don't find too many people that want to do better for themselves in the ghetto because so many people seem to be satisfied with where they're at.
— Delano Johnson, Words That Changed the World
Truth is worse than soap in the eyes.
— Suzanne Palmieri, The Witch of Belladonna Bay
If we forget our story we were doomed to repeat it
— Heather Nelson, The Albino Redwoods
Not all things can be expressed through words, not all the words reflect the truth.
— Ary Hidayat
Neither Rose nor Charles liked to talk much of their adventures with the trolls, but some of the so-called "softskins" whom they had brought out of Niflheim, as well as the crew of the ship Soren had hired to go north to find Rose, must have spread the story, because for many years afterward, there were tales of a race of trolls living on top of the world.Only Rose and her white bear know the whole truth of it.
— Edith Pattou, East
Why is the truth usually not just un- but anti-interesting?
— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
Make her smile, make her laugh and make her happy; because this is the only Truth, Meaning & Beauty act any human can ever achieve.
— Sameh Elsayed
I can pick a liar from a lineup of thieves and slanderers: the best of the best. I was hoping you would not resist the information we need but I must ask you now to answer my question truthfully and to choose your next words wisely. What does the key open?
— Celia McMahon, Skye
A row of trees far away, there on the hillside.But what is it, a row of trees? It’s just trees.Row and the plural trees aren’t things, they’re names.
— Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep
Intentions of a man reflects in his actions.
— Sukant Ratnakar, Open The Windows: To the World around You
If science wants to be truthful,What science is more truthful than the science of things without science?I close my eyes and the hard earth where I’m lyingHas a reality so real even my back feels it.I don’t need reason — I have shoulderblades.
— Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
A writer inevitably - and less directly this applies to all the arts - about contemporary events, and his impulse is to tell what he believes to be truth. But no government, no big organisation, will pay for the truth.
— George Orwell, I Have Tried to Tell the Truth: 1943-1944
I was born subject like others to errors and defects,But never to the error of wanting to understand too much,Never to the error of wanting to understand only with the intellect..Never to the defect of demanding of the WorldThat it be anything that’s not the World.
— Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
Between what i see in a field and what I see in another fieldThere passes for a moment the figure of a man.His steps go with “him” in the same reality,But I look at him and them, and they’re two things:The “man” goes walking with his ideas, false and foreign,And his steps go with the ancient system that makes legs walk.I see him from a distance without any opinion at all.How perfect that he is in him what he is — his body,His true reality which doesn’t have desires or hopes,But muscles and the sure and impersonal way of using them.
— Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
The amorous shepherd has lost his staff,And his sheep are straying on the hillside,And he didn’t even play the flute he brought to play because he was thinking so much.No one came to him or went away. He never found his staff again.Others, cursing at him, gathered his sheep for him.No one had loved him, in the end.When he got up from the hillside and the false truth, he saw everything:The great valleys full of the same green as always,The great distant mountains, more real than any feeling,All reality, with the sky and the air and the fields that exist, is present.(And once again the air, that he’d missed for so long, entered coolly into his lungs)And he felt that the air was opening again, but with pain, a liberty in his chest.(7/10/1930)
— Alberto Caeiro, O Pastor Amoroso
The path for those who go with the truth is not is not that smooth. Guns, crosses and hangmen in the gallows are waiting for them!
— Kandathil Sebastian, Dolmens in the Blue Mountain
All the evil in the world comes from us bothering with each other,Wanting to do good, wanting to do evil.Our soul and the sky and the earth are enough for us.To want more is to lose this, and be unhappy.
— Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep
The Amorous Shepherd is a fruitless interlude, but those few poems are among the world’s greatest love poems, because they’re love poems about love, not about being poems. The poet loves because he loves, not because love exists.
— Álvaro de Campos
he woman Caeiro fell in love with. I have no idea who she was, and I intend to never find out, not even out of curiosity. There are things of which the soul refuses to lose its ignorance.I’m perfectly aware no one’s obliged to reciprocate love, and great poets have nothing to do with being great lovers. But there’s a transcendent spite...Let her remain anonymous even to God!
— Álvaro de Campos
Something changed in part of reality — my knees and my hands.What science has knowledge for this?The blind man goes on his way and I don’t make any more gestures.It’s already not the same time, or the same people, or anything the same.This is being real.
— Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment... But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it.
— Max Frisch
A DEAD STATESMANI could not dig: I dared not rob:Therefore I lied to please the mob.Now all my lies are proved untrueAnd I must face the men I slew.What tale shall serve me here amongMine angry and defrauded young?from EPITAPHS OF THE WAR 1914-18
— Rudyard Kipling
But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound.
— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale
It was strange how she found out, One moment she didn't know; the next minute she did. One moment her mind was as blank as the desert; the next minute the snake of suspicion had slithered into her thoughts and raised its poisonous head.
— Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us
Sometimes you have to do something ugly so that something beautiful can grow.
— Cedric Nye, Jango's Anthem
After years of searching, I have found my soulmate, and it is myself. The bachelor is content. Oh, he still dates women from time to time, and he listens to the wedding marches sometimes too. But only because he likes them.
— Marci Shimoff, Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul (Chicken Soup for the Soul