Famous Quotes & Sayings

David Hume

To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old; to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.

David Hume

Reason, in a strict sense, as meaning the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never, of itself, be any motive to the will, and can have no influence but so far as it touches some passion or affection. Abstract relations of ideas are the object of curiosity, not of volition. And matters of fact, where they are neither good nor evil, where they neither excite desire nor aversion, are totally indifferent, and whether known or unknown, whether mistaken or rightly apprehended, cannot be regarded as any motive to action.

David Hume

Nothing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude.

David Duchovny

I'm not going to give up. I can't give up. Not as long as the truth is out there.

Audre Lorde

For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it.

Antonin Artaud

I see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.

Denise Levertov

I learn to affirm Truth's light at strange turns of the mind's road, wrong turns that lead over the border into wonder....

Denis Waitley

The truth is, you don't break a bad habit; you replace it with a good one.

Al Gore

In a free society, there comes a time when the truth - however hard it may be to hear, however impolitic it may seem to say - must be told.

Charles Kingsley

Stick to the old truths and the old paths, and learn their di- vineness by sick-beds and in every-day work, and do not darken your mind with intellectual puzzles, which may breed disbelief, but can never breed vital religion or practical usefulness.

Charles Kingsley

Pray over every truth; for though the renewed heart is not "desperately wicked," it is quite deceitful enough to become so, if God be forgotten a moment.

Charles Kingsley

Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy.

Charles Churchill

Truth! why shall every wretch of letters Dare to speak truth against his betters! Let ragged virtue stand aloof, Nor mutter accents of reproof; Let ragged wit a mute become, When wealth and power would have her dumb.

Charles Churchill

When fiction rises pleasing to the eye, men will believe, because they love the lie; but truth herself, if clouded with a frown, must have some solemn proof to pass her down.

Blaise Pascal

When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is good that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is a restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.

Blaise Pascal

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Blaise Pascal

We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.

Blaise Pascal

There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs.

Blaise Pascal

It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.

Blaise Pascal

Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood.

Blaise Pascal

We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them.

Blaise Pascal

...for the truth is always older than all the opinions men have held regarding it; and one should be ignoring the nature of truth if we imagined that the truth began at the time it came to be known.

Blaise Pascal

What a chimaera then is man, what a novelty, what a monster, what chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, yet an imbecile earthworm; depository of truth, yet a sewer of uncertainty and error; pride and refuse of the universe. Who shall resolve this tangle?

Blaise Pascal

Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders ourview. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tends to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing.... In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them.

Blaise Pascal

Unless we love the truth we cannot know it.

Blaise Pascal

It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf.

Blaise Pascal

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.

Blaise Pascal

Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.

Donald Tusk

A word of truth can mobilise two peoples looking for the road to reconciliation.

Twyla Tharp

The only way to know the truth of a movement is to do it on your own body.

Alexis Carrel

A few observation and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth.

Alexis de Tocqueville

There is no philosopher in the world so great but he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.

Alexandre Dumas

Great is truth. Fire cannot burn it nor water drown it.