The fight against truth decay is not new. It goes back thousands of years. And now accelerating.
If the truth set’s you free, what do untruths do? Below are dozens of quotes to enlighten us on the power of self-evident truths and not the personal or political truths humans have invented. What are some self-evident truths?
Aristotle offered an important one. "The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold." Those who debated, engineered, then approved the creation of the U.S. Constitution prove this profound truth.
Aristotle’s idea clearly expressed the fact that even a small mistake or error in the beginning can lead to much larger consequences down the road. When we start with an incorrect assumption or premise, further reasoning and decision-making will be flawed. If things are built on that faulty foundation, the errors will accumulate and multiply if not corrected. The issue of slavery was. But not the very delusional foundation that states and the people within them can be independent of one another. This delusion has increasingly perpetrated incorrect conclusions, ineffective actions, and increasing dysfunctional systems and structures at nearly every national and global level.
Aristotle emphasized the importance of starting with a strong foundation of truth and accuracy in our thinking and reasoning to avoid the compounding effects of errors and ensure that our actions and decisions are based on sound principles and reasoning. Sound fundamental principles like the self-evident truths clearly stated within the Declaration of Independence assumed under “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.
"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 (1632-1704) English philosopher and political theorist. Considered the ideological progenitor of the American Revolution and who, by far, was the most often non-biblical writer quoted by the Founding Fathers of the USA.
"There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself." -- Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English author, poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer
“[The masses] have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two.” Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) founding father of psychoanalysis.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.” Gustave Le Bon The Crowd: A Study Of The Popular Mind. 1895. A leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. Died in 1931.
“Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prudence [1841]
"It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things, which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. ... Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -- Patrick Henry (1736-1799) US Founding Father Source: "The War Inevitable" speech to the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend." Hypatia of Alexandria, lived circa 400 CE in Alexandria, Egypt
"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." -- Buddha
“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion” Edward Abby
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” James Reeves
“A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good just because it’s accepted by a majority.” Booker T. Washington
"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth." - Sydney Schanberg
“Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.' “ Khalil Gibran - The Prophet
"Truth: the deadliest weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death." - John Gilmore (1935- ) Author
“You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100/Methuselah's Children
"Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare." Kurt Vonnegut
"Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people."- Spencer Johnson
"The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can ever help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it's the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority." -- Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet
"It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition to stand up for it": A. Hodge
"Truth never tranquilizes. The defining property of truth is its ability to disturb. Jesus only told half the story. The truth 'will' set you free. But, first it's going to piss you off." -- Solomon Short a fictional character of David Gerrold.
"You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common, they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views" - Doctor Who
"There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge." -- Roger Bacon (1220-1292) Source: Opus Majus, 1266-67
"Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German writer, statesman Source: engraved on a plaque at the Naval War College
“Integrity is an accurate reflection in word and deed of whatever one's highest conscience dictates as right. Wisdom is whatever one's highest conscience dictates as truth.” – Leonard E. Read
“Though all the winds of the doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?” – John Milton, Areopagatica [1644]
"The search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty." - Anne Louise Germaine de Stael (1766-1817) French author
"The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal": Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Advice to Youth
"There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths." Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, 19th century English novelist, poet, and politician. (He believed that no matter how alone or friendless a person may feel, there is always someone who cares enough about them to tell them the truth, even if it is something they do not want to hear. A sincere friend will not hesitate to point out someone's flaws or mistakes, even if it is uncomfortable or awkward to do so. In essence, he emphasized the importance of having genuine and honest relationships with people who are willing to tell the truth, no matter how difficult it may be. It also suggests that true friendship is not about always agreeing with each other, but rather about supporting and helping each other to become better people.)
"Truth is not determined by majority vote": Doug Gwyn
“A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not.” Rex Tillerson. Former Secretary of State, at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA May 2018
"Truth: the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death." -- John Gilmore (1935-2016) American true crime writer, author of Hollywood memoirs, and novelist
“If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us.” - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
“The WORLD is not sufficiently aware of the influence that sophistry exerts over it. When the rule of the stronger was overthrown, sophistry transferred the empire to the more subtle, and it would be hard to say which of these two tyrants has been the more disastrous for mankind. Men have an immoderate love of pleasure, influence, prestige, power—in a word, wealth. And, at the same time, they are driven by a powerful impulse to obtain these things for themselves at the expense of others. But these others, who constitute the public, are impelled no less powerfully to keep what they have acquired, provided that they can and that they know how. Plunder, which plays such an important role in the affairs of the world, has but two instruments: force and fraud, and two impediments courage and knowledge.” — Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisms [1845]
"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go un-debated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." -- Simon Heffer Source: Daily Mail, 7 June 2000
"I would rather starve and rot and keep the privilege of speaking the truth as I see it, than of holding all the offices that capital has to give from the presidency down." -- Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) Pulitzer prize-winning historian (1919), great-grandson of John Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, and son of US Secretary of State, Charles Adams. Source: The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma, 1919
“Perhaps this is not a new thing! "I know that most men -- not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems — can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty -- conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives." -- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1828-1910) Russian writer Source: What is Art? (1896)
"The political spirit is the great force in throwing the love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place." -- John Viscount Morley (1838-1923), of Blackburn Source: On Compromise, 1874
“It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always.” – M. Russell Ballard
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest": Thomas Paine
"When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility." - Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Robert Reich - Have We Lost the Common Good? [ (4 min) Video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t8in5n4cps In it video, political commentator, author, and former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, points out that most Americans no longer believe that the major institutions of society—government, corporations, banks, charities, and universities—work for them. Only truths will rebuild trust in our systems.
“Americans need to recognize that, once their government commences warring, truth will be target number one.” – James Bovard, "Endless U.S. Government Lies on the Afghanistan War" [October 2018]
"The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), US civil rights leader.
“Today’s politics is the art of forcing our love of truth - and logic - to the back of the bus. And putting your political parties priorities in first ten rows.” Cw
"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." - Flannery O'Connor (1925 - 1964)
"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it": Mohandas Gandhi
"If you're right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth." Mahatma Gandhi
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself": Thomas Jefferson
"There is but one truth, one set of facts, one reality. Honest people may differ in their perception or interpretation of it while ruthless, dishonorable people, media, or governments twist, conceal, deny or lie about it to further their own greed and corruption.” - Bob Davies
"One of the hardest things to teach a child is that the truth is more important than the consequences." - O. A. Battista - [Orlando Aloysius Battista] (1917-1995), Canadian-American chemist and author
"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence": Henri Frederic Amiel: 1880s
"Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side." Goethe German writer, artist, natural scientist and politician (1749–1832)
"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people." -- Giordano Bruno [Iordanus Brunus Nolanus] (1548-1600) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, astrologer. Source: The Shadows of Ideas, Paris, 1582
"Honesty demands that we boldly pursue ideas tested by time, defended by reason, validated by experience, and confirmed by revelation. We will only find truth when we place our confidence in it and not in ourselves. We will only learn when we love truth enough to measure all ideas with a measuring rod outside of those things being measured and are willing to discard those ideas we find to be "intolerable," inferior, and useless." -- Everett Piper
President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University Source: 'Bethlehem, Not Berkeley, Is the Birthplace of Free Speech,' The Christian Post, Apr 27, 2017
“Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine — the special pleading of selfish interests”. – Henry Hazlitt, Economics In One Lesson [1946]
"The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German writer and statesman
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Physicist and Professor, Nobel Prize 1921
"All truth is true even if no one believes it, and all falsehood is false even if everyone believes it. Truth is true and that's just the end of it." Os Guinness
“The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.” – Goethe. German writer, artist, natural scientist and politician (1749–1832)
“They deem him their worst enemy, who tells them the truth” - Plato, The Republic, c. 380 BC
"It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true." - Henry Kissinger
"To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true." - H L Mencken, 1919
"The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal": Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Advice to Youth
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." - Winston S. Churchill
"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth." - William Faulkner
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." - Oscar Wilde
"The first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth" - Michael Parenti
"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." - Herbert Sebastien Agar
"A society committed to the search for truth must give protection to, and set a high value upon, the independent and original mind, however angular, however rasping, however, socially unpleasant it may be; for it is upon such minds in large measure, that the effective search for truth depends." -- Caryl Parker Haskins (1908-2001) Scientist, author, inventor, philanthropist, governmental advisor and pioneering entomologist in the study of ant biology Source: New York Times, 9 December 1963
"When telling someone the truth, make them laugh or they will kill you" ~ Oscar Wilde
"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." - Herbert Sebastien Agar
"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." -- Justice Joseph Story : (1779-1845) US Supreme Court Justice 1833
"I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. - I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. - I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering." - Mahatma Gandhi
“I am for truth, no matter who tells it.” -Malcolm X
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
"In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth," "In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble." Rep. Ron Paul (R) of Texas
“The men that American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest the most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” -- H L Mencken (attributed: source unknown)
“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them” Ida B. Wells
“We make ourselves real by telling the truth. Man can hardly forget that he needs to know the truth, for the instinct to know is too strong in us to be destroyed. But he can forget how badly he also needs to tell the truth. We cannot know truth unless we ourselves are conformed to it. We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves true by manifesting the truth as we see it”. – Thomas Merton, From No Man Is an Island [1955]
"The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead or contradict them because they are alive.
With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf -- a philosopher or servant, — but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world." -- Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, Civil War veteran, political leader, orator of United States during the Golden Age of Free Thought, nicknamed "The Great Agnostic"
“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.” – Joseph Goebbels
I stand for the truth. Will stand for it? If not, then what do you stand for?
