Whole Truth Quotes

• A half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.

  J. I. Packer

  Half, Truth Is, Whole

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• All knowledge is partial, infinitesimally partial. Reason is a net thrown out into an ocean. What truth it brings in is a fragment, a glimpse, a scintillation of the whole truth.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Ocean, Humility, Glimpse

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin”, p.295, Simon and Schuster

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• A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Truth, Integrity, Lying

  "The Art of Worldly Wisdom".

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• For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.

  Patrick Henry

  Truth, Honesty, Integrity

  Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, delivered 23 March 1775 at Henrico Parrish Church St, Richmond Virginia, Second Virginia Convention

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• Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth.

  Charles A. Dana

  Truth, Believe, Fighting

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• There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Inspirational, Truth, Science

  Dialogues prologue (1954)

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• There are no whole truths: All truths are half-truths.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Truth, Lying, Half

  Dialogues prologue (1954)

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• No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition.

  William Osler

  Life, Humility, Men

  Sir William Osler (2001). “Osler's "a Way of Life" and Other Addresses, with Commentary and Annotations”, p.337, Duke University Press

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• First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Love, Truth, Genius

  "Maxims and Reflections". Book by by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Maxim 382, 1833.

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• I can't say why people lie; they just do. Everyone has their own reasons for not telling the truth.

  Eric Carr

  Lying, People, Telling The Truth

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• Telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.

  Pietro Aretino

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Pietro Aretino (1933). “The Works”

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• Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Inspirational, Money

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.125, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Inspirational, Truth, Comfort

  "All Said and Done". Book by Simone de Beauvoir, 1972.

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• You have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

  Doris Lessing

  Giving Up, Creative Writers, Creative Writing

  "Mrs. Lessing Addresses Some of Life's Puzzles". Interview with Herbert Mitgang, archive.nytimes.com. April 22, 1984.

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• I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

  Doris Lessing

  Giving Up, Hard Work, Writing

  "Mrs. Lessing Addresses Some of Life's Puzzles". Interview with Herbert Mitgang, archive.nytimes.com. April 22, 1984.

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• you'd like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That must be the most futile oath anyone ever swears.

  P. D. James

  Nothing But The Truth, Oath, Swear

  P. D. James (2008). “The Lighthouse”, p.203, Faber & Faber

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• Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.

  John Stuart Mill

  Truth, Halloween, Opinion

  John Stuart Mill (2015). “On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays”, p.45, OUP Oxford

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• The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Catholic, Half, Vices

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• If you don't tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth about your own life, someone may claim the right to tell it for you.

  Lucinda Roy

  Gossip, May, Telling The Truth

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• One must be truly able to say I in order to know the mystery of the Thou in its whole truth.

  Martin Buber

  Order, Mindfulness, Able

  Martin Buber (2003). “Between Man and Man”, p.207, Routledge

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• The whole truth... sings only - and all lovers are the song.

  e. e. cummings

  Life, Song, Lovers

  "95 poems (91)". Book by E. E. Cummings, 1958.

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• We cannot know the whole truth, which belongs to God alone, but our task nevertheless is to seek to know what is true.

  Wendell Berry

  Tasks, Nevertheless, Whole

  Wendell Berry (2012). “It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture & Other Essays”, p.27, Counterpoint Press

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• Poetry implies the whole truth. Philosophy expresses a particle of it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Philosophy, Poetry

  "The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861".

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• Don't forget that few people are likely to tell more than a small part of the truth: no one tells much of the truth, let alone the whole truth. Spoken words are facts in themselves, whether true or false. When people talk they reveal themselves, whether they're lying or telling the truth.

  Halldór Laxness

  Lying, People, True Or False

  Halldór Laxness (2005). “Under the Glacier”, Vintage Books

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• It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts... 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.

  Patrick Henry

  Song, Eye, Men

  Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, delivered 23 March 1775 at Henrico Parrish Church St, Richmond Virginia, Second Virginia Convention

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