Quotes about truth

Quotes

1. Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one?

   A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.

   Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth?

   A. I am.

   • Science
   • Truth

2. 

   Truth is a discredited commodity among diplomats.

   • Truth

   p. 64

3. 

   Anything could be found in figures if the search were long enough and hard enough and if the proper pieces of information were ignored or overlooked.

   • Truth

   p. 399

4. 

   Maybe it’s a mark of a maturing culture, do you think, that secrets aren’t kept, that truth is told, that things are talked out?

   • Truth
   • Honesty

   p. 313

5. 

   When I was a boy, Brayldon, my old master once said that time could never destroy the truth—it could only hide it among legends. He was right.

   • Truth
   • Time

   p. 114

6. 

   News that is sufficiently bad somehow carries its own guarantee of truth. Only good reports need confirmation.

   • Truth

   p. 170

7. 

   There was no substitute for reality; one should be aware of imitations.

   • Truth

   p. 129

8. 

   Relying on words to lead you to the truth is like relying on an incomplete formal system to lead you to the truth. A formal system will give you some truths, but as we shall soon see, a formal system, no matter how powerful—cannot lead to all truths.

   • Truth
   • Words

9. 

   One of the basic tenets of Zen Buddhism is that there is no way to characterize what Zen is. No matter what verbal space you try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over. It might seem, then, that all efforts to explain Zen are complete wastes of time. But that is not the attitude of Zen masters and students. For instance, Zen koans are a central part of Zen study, verbal though they are. Koans are supposed to be "triggers" which, though they do not contain enough information in themselves to impart enlightenment, may possibly be sufficient to unlock the mechanisms inside one's mind that lead to enlightenment. But in general, the Zen attitude is that words and truth are incompatible, or at least that no words can capture truth.

   • Religion
   • Truth
   • Words

10. 

    In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.

    • Truth
    • Doubt

11. 

    Platitude — An idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

    • Truth

12. 

    Truth — Something somehow discreditable to someone.

    • Truth