A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous. – Alfred Adler
Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams. – W. Somerset Maugham
Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another. – George Saunders
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. – Umberto Eco
There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth. – John Kenneth Galbraith
As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. – Josh Billings
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. – Arthur Conan Doyle
Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say. – Virginia Woolf
The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility. – Charles Caleb Colton
There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison. – Andre Maurois
If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason. – James Madison
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false. – Henri Frederic Amiel
It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. – Arthur Conan Doyle
To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth. – Milan Kundera
Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said. – Mel Brooks
The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth. – Jean de la Bruyere
The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity. – Virginia Woolf
Tragedy is like strong acid – it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth. – David Herbert Lawrence
Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie. – Horace Walpole
One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant. – John Locke
