Falsehood Quotes - Page 20

• Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Men, Deception, Mind

  Desiderius Erasmus (1986). “Literary and Educational Writings: Panegyricus and Philippum Austriaeducem. Moriae encomium. Dialogus Julius exclusus e coelis. Institutio principis christiani. Querela pacis”

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• The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Truth, Philosophical, World

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1984). “Notebooks, 1914-1916”, p.32, University of Chicago Press

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• The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

  Niels Bohr

  Truth, Science, Opposites

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• Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Truth, Oil, Broken

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• It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.

  Anne Sullivan Macy

  Children, Mistake, Educational

  "Helen Keller: A Life". Book by Dorothy Herrmann, University of Chicago Press, p. 56, 1999.

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• When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other and according to the superiority which I discover, I pronounce my decision. Always I reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

  David Hume

  Men, Decision, Miracle

  David Hume (2016). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Revision of Great Book”, p.88, VM eBooks

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• Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.

  Matthew Arnold

  Death, Truth, Men

  'Sohrab and Rustum' (1853) l. 656

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• Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

  James Russell Lowell

  Evil, Sides, Conflict

  James Russell Lowell, “The Present Crisis”

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• So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.

  Tacitus

  Encouragement, Errors, Events

  Tacitus (2013). “The Annals”, p.112, Courier Corporation

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• Yes, of course, there's something fishy about describing people's feelings. You try hard to be accurate, but as soon as you start to define such and such a feeling, language lets you down. It's really a machine for making falsehoods. When we really speak the truth, words are insufficient. Almost everything except things like "pass the gravy" is a lie of a sort. And that being the case, I shall shut up. Oh, and... pass the gravy.

  Iris Murdoch

  Lying, People, Feelings

  "Fictional character: Iris Murdoch". "Iris", www.imdb.com. 2001.

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• Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Too Late, Limping

  Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1784). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Including the Whole of His Posthumous Pieces, Letters, &c”, p.15

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• Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Turns, Rebuke

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.247, Courier Corporation

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• Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Examination, Fraud, Dread

  Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, 1831.

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• Better is the wrong with sincerity, rather than the right with falsehood.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Sincerity

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1846). “Proverbial Philosophy: A Book of Thoughts and Arguments, Originally Treated”, p.147

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• Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Over You, Watches, Looks

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2015). “The Brothers Karamazov”, p.87, First Avenue Editions

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• It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is better to stand alone with the truth, than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. There is only one Gospel.

  Adrian Rogers

  Hurt, Lying, Errors

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• ..the real world's all we've got. Believers in the supernatural claim to have special wisdom about the world. But real wisdom means knowing truth from falsehood, knowing the difference between evidence and wishful thinking. Yes, the real world is mysterious and sometimes frightening. But would the supernatural make it better? The real world has beauty, poetry, love and the joy of honest discovery. Isn't that enough?

  John Stossel

  Real, Mean, Thinking

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• Knowledge is a continuous fabric, in which ideas are connected to other ideas. Reason-free zones, in which people can assert arbitrary beliefs safe from ordinary standards of evaluation, can only corrupt this fabric, just as a contradiction can corrupt a system of logic, allowing falsehoods to proliferate through it.

  Steven Pinker

  Ideas, People, Ordinary

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• There is no doubt that truth is to falsehood as light is to darkness; and so excellent a thing is truth that even when it touches humble and lowly matters, it still incomparably exceeds the uncertainty and falsehood in which great and elevated discourses are clothed; because even if falsehood be the fifth element of our minds, notwithstanding this, truth is the supreme nourishment of the higher intellects.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Truth, Humble, Light

  Leonardo da Vinci (2017). “Thoughts on art and life”, p.18, Youcanprint

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• It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so. After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the group which had seen the master, the word of Jesus was convicted of falsehood.

  Ernest Renan

  Christian, Jesus, Taken

  Ernest Renan (2015). “The Life of Jesus: Works of Renan”, 谷月社

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• As the places where Americans dwell become evermore depressing and impossible, Disneyworld is where they escape to worship the nation in the abstract, a cartoon capital of a cartoon republic enshrining the falsehoods, half-truths, and delusions that prop up the squishy thing the national character has become--for instance, that we are a nation of families; that we care about our fellow citizens; that history matters; that there is a place called home.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Depressing, Home, Character

  James Howard Kunstler (1993). “The geography of nowhere: the rise and decline of America's man-made landscape”

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• I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Memories, Lying, Worst Enemy

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)”, p.221, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Politeness only teaches us to save others from unnecessary pain.... You are not bound by politeness to tell any falsehoods.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Pain, Unnecessary, Teach

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1825). “Works of Maria Edgeworth: Modern Griselda. Moral tales. 1825”, p.83

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• Politicians nowadays treat Americans like medical orderlies treat Alzheimer's patients, telling them anything that will keep them subdued. It doesn't matter what untruths the people are fed because they will not long remember. But in politics, forgotten falsehoods almost guarantee new treachery.

  James Bovard

  Alzheimer's, Long, People

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• Even as he would be guilty of falsehood who would, in the name of another person, proffer things that are not committed to him, so too does a man incur the guilt of falsehood who, on the part of the Church, gives worship to God contrary to the manner established by the Church or divine authority, and according to ecclesiastical custom.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Men, Names, Giving

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (1948). “Summa Theologica.ed”

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