Quotes about truth

“I frankly doubt that.”

“Ah. That is your privilege. But doubt doesn’t alter fact, sir.”

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion — i.e., none to speak of.

Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them. This is immutable, true everywhere, throughout all time, for all men and all nations.

“The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail’ is merely a pious wish; history doesn’t show it.”

He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not.

A prediction, or any assertion, that cannot be defended might still be true, but an explanation that cannot be defended is not an explanation.

Surely it is more interesting to argue about what the truth is, than about what some particular thinker, however great, did or did not think.

Gödel's theorem shows conclusively that in pure mathematics reductionism does not work. To decide whether a mathematical statement is true, it is not sufficient to reduce the statement to marks on paper and to study the behavior of the marks. Except in trivial cases, you can decide the truth of a statement only by studying its meaning and its context in the larger world of mathematical ideas.

And the odd thing in Dad’s voice was the sound truth makes being said. The sound of truth, in a wild roving land of city or plain country lies, will spell any boy.

I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.