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45467f1 some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their real problems. reality truth soap-opera tv problems movies Chuck Palahniuk
462b1d8 If what he said was the truth, it broke her heart. If what he said was a lie, it was broken anyway. lies heart truth Christine Feehan
d33fe5d Truth for anyone is a very complex thing. For a writer, what you leave out says as much as those things you include. What lies beyond the margin of the text? The photographer frames the shot; writers frame their world. Mrs Winterson objected to what I had put in, but it seemed to me that what I had left out was the story's silent twin. There are so many things that we can't say, because they are too painful. We hope that the things we can say will soothe the rest, or appease it in some way. Stories are compensatory. The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control. When we tell a story we exercise control, but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening. It is a version, but never the final one. And perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard by someone else, and the story can continue, can be retold. When we write we offer the silence as much as the story. Words are the part of silence that can be spoken. Mrs Winterson would have preferred it if I had been silent. Do you remember the story of Philomel who is raped and then has her tongue ripped out by the rapist so that she can never tell? I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back through the language of others. We can turn to the poem. We can open the book. Somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words. I needed words because unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself. silence truth narrative storytelling trauma Jeanette Winterson
6bcbbcd It's easy to talk big, but the important thing is whether or not you clean up the shit. life truth shit talking Haruki Murakami
5a43f91 I think all of us are looking for that which does not admit of bullshit . . . If you tell me you can bench press 450, hell, we'll load up the bar and put you under it. Either you can do it or you can't do it--you can't bullshit. Ultimately, sports are just about as close to what one would call the truth as it is possible to get in this world. truth bullshit sports Harry Crews
c02fb3c The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated. life truth Terry Pratchett
763c38a Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference. George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Martha: Amen. truth Edward Albee
1e5976e Just beyond the ticket booth Father had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? An arrow pointed to a small curtain. There were so many eager, curious hands that pulled at the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind it was a mirror. people life truth Yann Martel
ba3f9cb The devil's agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? mankind truth devil evil Arthur Conan Doyle
6a98e0d A little truth seasons a lie like salt. story truth Jacqueline Carey
27b6df1 What is too absurd to be believed is believed because it is too absurd to be a lie. truth Robert Jordan
38332da Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. marriage truth sentimentality tim-keller Timothy Keller
1a54ef1 Now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted. wanted truth wish children Mitch Albom
0bb92fb The moon is the reflection of your heart and moonlight is the twinkle of your love. education happiness heart hope intelligence life love moon philosophy truth twinkle wisdom inspirational reflection knowledge moonlight Debasish Mridha
afa77b6 Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes. beauty truth breakfast-of-champions sometimes kurt-vonnegut symbols symbol symbolism Kurt Vonnegut
f5ff219 Everything he had ever done that had been better left undone. Every lie he had told -- told to himself, or told to others. Every little hurt, and all the great hurts. Each one was pulled out of him, detail by detail, inch by inch. The demon stripped away the cover of forgetfulness, stripped everything down to truth, and it hurt more than anything. truth hurt lie forgetfulness Neil Gaiman
f798659 There is no experience like having children.' That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children. having-children responsibility family life love truth experience children Mitch Albom
997e773 ...most people in the ancient world, did not make a sharp distinction between myth and reality. The two were intimately tied together in their spiritual experience. That is to say, they were less interested in what , than in what it . It would have been perfectly normal, indeed expected, for a writer in the ancient world, to tell tales of gods and heroes, whose fundamental facts would have been recognized as false, but whose underlying message would have been seen as true. history truth biblical-scholarship scholarship fact Reza Aslan
f782e59 "Truth only exists for those who cling to it. "Sosuke Aizen" -- truth cling kubo tite manga Tite Kubo
4595ff2 Thanks to my mother, I was raised to have a morbid imagination. When I was a child, she often talked about death as warning, as an unavoidable matter of fact. Little Debbie's mom down the block might say, 'Honey, look both ways before crossing the street.' My mother's version: 'You don't look, you get smash flat like sand dab.' (Sand dabs were the cheap fish we bought live in the market, distinguished in my mind by their two eyes affixed on one side of their woebegone cartoon faces.) The warnings grew worse, depending on the danger at hand. Sex education, for example, consisted of the following advice: 'Don't ever let boy kiss you. You do, you can't stop. Then you have baby. You put baby in garbage can. Police find you, put you in jail, then you life over, better just kill youself. truth Amy Tan
987600c If we act like prey, they'll act like predators fear truth hunting prey Alyxandra Harvey
81a2528 After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes? war passion past truth troy passage-of-time justification iliad mythology right homer Umberto Eco
ba43f85 WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN? The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato. SQUEAK, he said. Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE. truth squeak knowledge evil Terry Pratchett
916e3cc Truth! Freedom! Justice! And a hard-boiled egg! truth slogan justice revolution Terry Pratchett
e46e256 "The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea; And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes. But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure; And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line. For self is a sea boundless and measureless. Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth." Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals." poetry truth growth soul Kahlil Gibran
dc5f420 Chaos is more freedom; in fact, total freedom. But no meaning. freedom meaning life truth Audrey Niffenegger
256ba07 "Fuck you! I hope you die!" "Everybody Dies," I said. "So fuck you." truth pessimism Lawrence Block
61203f7 Let me say no more. Words do no justice to the hidden meaning. Everything immediately becomes slightly different when it is expressed in words, a little bit distorted, a little foolish...It is perfectly fine with me that what for one man is precious wisdom for another sounds like foolery. spiritual truth wisdom Hermann Hesse
948121d We are all insects. Groping towards something terrible or divine. truth Philip K. Dick
2841628 The thing about lying to your parents is, you have to do it to protect them. It's for their own good. lying truth protect parents Sophie Kinsella
7654975 And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth. stupidity intelligence truth Mark Haddon
85de880 The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large. earth world truth lousy manufactured planet kurt-vonnegut destruction Kurt Vonnegut
8b125b6 "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything is tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?" Joseph Knect said to his Music Master "there is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend rather, you should long for perfection in yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived not taught" religion truth Hermann Hesse
cdd9abd Everything is true,' he said. 'Everything anybody has ever thought.' 'Will you be all right?' 'I'll be all right,' he said, and thought, And I'm going to die. Both those are true, too. life truth thought Philip K. Dick
ab759fb You'd like Freedom, Truth, and Justice, wouldn't you, Comrade Sergeant?' said Reg encouragingly. 'I'd like a hard-boiled egg,' said Vimes, shaking the match out. There was some nervous laughter, but Reg looked offended. 'In the circumstances, Sergeant, I think we should set our sights a little higher--' 'Well, yes, we could,' said Vimes, coming down the steps. He glanced at the sheets of papers in front of Reg. The man cared. He really did. And he was serious. He really was. 'But...well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I'm pretty sure that whatever happens we won't have found Freedom, and there won't be a whole lot of Justice, and I'm damn sure we won't have found Truth. But it's just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg. freedom truth hard-boiled-egg justice revolution realism Terry Pratchett
ae8e80e He drew the dagger and laid it on the table between them; a length of dragonbone and Valyrian steel, as sharp as the difference between right and wrong, between true and false, between life and death. lies life truth George R.R. Martin
413a40f It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit. And when I multiplied that sad feeling by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furiously writing and posting to their lonely little pages that nobody has time to read because they're all so busy writing and posting, it kind of broke my heart. truth cyberspace internet Ruth Ozeki
d45402d Scepticism is the first step towards truth. truth skepticism Denis Diderot
87a1804 Sarcasm is when you tell someone the truth by lying on purpose. lying lies humor truth sarcasm Chuck Klosterman
6fc7b5d I just think if you don't the honest thing, sometimes the honest thing never becomes true, you know, and I- truth John Green
2cb74fd Because love was not the answer to every question. Because real love meant sacrifice. Sometimes love means letting go. sacrifice love truth Melissa de la Cruz
5f47215 There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth. lying truth Stephen King
8ab37e3 And where love ends, hate begins love truth Leo Tolstoy
bacb7f4 If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance (...); as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as points out [in his ], she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. stereotypes woman equality fiction truth clichés greatness dignity importance hypocrisy respect gender Virginia Woolf
4f41c64 I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit. illusion life truth Irvin D. Yalom
c534621 Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone. life truth status open-heart nowhere Mitch Albom
c6ca037 One could argue that it's romantic to die for love. Of course, then you're dead and unable to take that honeymoon trip to the Alps with all the other fashionable young couples, which is a shame. death love truth romantic-ideals miss-moore libba-bray Libba Bray
114122e Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful, and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe this was the first and last and only truth. life truth Philip Pullman
c52fac3 "Reality is far more vicious than Russian roulette. First, it delivers the fatal bullet rather infrequently, like a revolver that would have hundreds, even thousands of chambers instead of six. After a few dozen tries, one forgets about the existence of a bullet, under a numbing false sense of security. Second, unlike a well-defined precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality. One is capable of unwittingly playing Russian roulette - and calling it by some alternative "low risk" game." truth Nassim Nicholas Taleb
bd73c03 Ergo: girls should always make the first move, because (a) they are, on the whole, less likely to be rejected than guys, (b) that way, girls will never get kissed unless they want to be kissed. kissing kiss truth girls John Green
0b6f200 Marriage: a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don't know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully omitted to investigate. self-knowledge marriage relationships love truth Alain de Botton
da0fb7f I don't know what sort of world she will live in and I have no fixed opinions concerning how she should live in it. I only know that if she does not come to value what is true above what is useful, it will make little difference whether she lives at all. truth opportunism values Cormac McCarthy
658282c A mother's heart is a vast and glorious thing. My mother's heart was expansive, having been enlarged by suffering and years of clinging to Jesus while being misunderstood, dismissed, and judged by those she loved most. Me included. It had cost her to love, had cost her much to mother. It always does. But she would tell you that it's worth it, that there is no other way. love truth John and Stasi Eldredge
588924c He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague . . . He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightening on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands. life truth introverts W. Somerset Maugham
c42154b Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult....Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings -- much harder than to say something fine about them which is the exact truth. truth George Eliot
86d3604 Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it. prejudice fantasy religion truth Mercedes Lackey
9592e1e I'd developed an inability to demonstrate much negative emotion at all. It was another thing that made me seem like a dick - my stomach could be all oiled eels, and you would get nothing from my face and less from my words. It was a constant problem: too much control or no control at all. words truth dick judging-by-appearance jumping-to-conclusions outer-appearance what-s-inside-that-counts stoic emotional judging heartless mean control emotions panic judgemental Gillian Flynn
45f95dd It's better not to know authors personally, because the real person never corresponds to the image you form of him from reading his books. truth Italo Calvino
da4a273 Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant. truth W. Somerset Maugham
6380a03 We modern human beings are looking at life, trying to make some sense of it; observing a 'reality' that often seems to be unfolding in a foreign tongue--only we've all been issued the wrong librettos. For a text, we're given the Bible. Or the Talmud or the Koran. We're given Time magazine, and Reader's Digest, daily papers, and the six o'clock news; we're given schoolbooks, sitcoms, and revisionist histories; we're given psychological counseling, cults, workshops, advertisements, sales pitches, and authoritative pronouncements by pundits, sold-out scientists, political activists, and heads of state. Unfortunately, none of these translations bears more than a faint resemblance to what is transpiring in the true theater of existence, and most of them are dangerously misleading. We're attempting to comprehend the spiraling intricacies of a magnificently complex tragicomedy with librettos that describe the barrom melodramas or kindergarten skits. And when's the last time you heard anybody bitch about it to the management? reality religion life truth meaning-of-life fact Tom Robbins
7424e4d One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth. life truth Peter Kreeft
e4d61c8 No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final. humanity truth Colum McCann
aef4a9a But I still feel like I lost. We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in the sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet. probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real-but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else. reality love truth win Chuck Klosterman
772eb82 While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus. understanding prejudice truth impetus motivations humility Andrew Solomon
151a02c "For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like." truth Muriel Spark
843b2da Everything that is,casts a shadow truth shadow Neil Gaiman
1e8ff8e We are always trying to convert people to a belief in our own explanation of the universe. We think that the more people there are who believe as we do, the more certain it will be that what we believe is the truth. But it doesn't work that way at all. universe truth common-sense way-of-life Paulo Coelho
10999d5 There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. perfection truth perfectionist perfectionism Hermann Hesse
20fdc18 "Don't ever trust men with good intentions. They'll always disappoint you." Leo" truth Lisa Kleypas
6b85ec8 It is a principle of diplomacy that one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly. truth Tom Clancy
28f21f6 All you know is what you think you know, but that isn't always what's real. life-and-living truth truthful truth-of-life Carrie Vaughn
46f5bce Grief, no matter how you try to cater to its wail, has a way of fading away. death-and-dying pain grief mortality sadness truth grief-and-loss-quotes pain-goes-away death-of-a-loved-one grief-and-loss grieve truth-of-life V.C. Andrews
66ea048 ...In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves. truth Dan Brown
3935896 Half-truths are worth more than outright lies. truth lie George R.R. Martin
419823e What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too. And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death. dark death truth favourite-quote Kurt Vonnegut
c742bd0 "I know you have it in you, Guy," Anne said suddenly at the end of a silence, "the capacity to be terribly happy." silence happy human truth terribly strangers-on-a-train patricia-highsmith train strangers Patricia Highsmith
82454b8 At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism. Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers? human-rights india equality women reality truth inspirational environmental-degradation false-gods narmada-valley dam government-corruption corporations nationalism economics government capitalism exploitation Arundhati Roy
f2ca487 At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. science truth open-minded counterintuitive skeptical scrutiny open-mindedness skepticism ideas nonsense Carl Sagan
a0e15c6 I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical. Cancer may cool you, but the other's sure to. truth Truman Capote
722c3b6 Know that diamonds and roses are as uncomfortable when they tumble from one's lips as toads and frogs: colder, too, and sharper, and they cut. metaphor truth rumors Neil Gaiman
44f2d74 So,' Nico said, 'since we're going to be spending at least a year seeing each other at camp, I think I should clear the air.' Percy's smile wavered. 'What do you mean? truth percy-jackson Rick Riordan
fa5a01f ..the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man. mankind philosophy truth Yann Martel
81b556e Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people's psychology with my own. truth Jeanette Winterson
1eb0a30 She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception. truth preception George Eliot
dd5b912 Why ask for truth when you close your ears to it? - Ser Barristan Selmy to Daenerys truth barristan daenerys game-of-thrones George R.R. Martin
9a3660d Awake. And alone with demons of my own. truth superstition Khaled Hosseini
02c578c I'm tired of the lies and the cheating, and the broken promises that were never meant to be kept. truth promises Sidney Sheldon
34769d3 This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have. life truth offer respect Mitch Albom
22f2a8d In a narcissistic cathexis, you invest more energy into your ideas about another person than in the actual, objective, external person. So the man who falls in love with beauty is quite different from the man who loves a girl and feels she is beautiful and can see what is beautiful about her. truth narcissism Alison Bechdel
f6e159b Faith is believing in something you know isn't true. faith religion truth believe Tom Robbins
de267d1 ...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything. truth Leo Tolstoy
bb7d85c This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV) god truth inspirational verse scripture Anonymous
529ba86 Women talk when they want to. Or don't. truth Robert A. Heinlein
c1fc5ac In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up. It was the best advice Francie every got. truth Betty Smith
9fc0b84 If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth. truth Timothy B. Tyson
da7013d Unfortunately it's also true to say that good management is a bit like oxygen - it's invisible and you don't notice its presence until it's gone, and then you're sorry. management truth truisms Charles Stross
f3ef89d "For my true thoughts have spent more time in your company than in anyone else's, these last two or three months, and where my thoughts are, there am I, in truth"." thoughts truth A.S. Byatt
d598643 You know, they've got these chocolate assortments, and you like some but you don't like others? And you eat all the ones you like, and the only ones left are the ones you don't like as much? I always think about that when something painful comes up. Now I just have to polish these off, and everything'll be OK. Life is a box of chocolates. I suppose you could call it a philosophy. life philosophy truth chocolate Haruki Murakami
165caba love wasn't the soft, silky words the poets spoke of. Love,with it's twin edges, was the one factor that weakened so many women, that pushed them to compromised their own wants, their own needs for the needs and wants of another. truth Nora Roberts
54e3449 I know, brother, that you are a straightforward man, and that you pride yourself on it. But put one question to yourself: in fact should one tell the truth? What obliges us to do it? And why do we consider telling the truth a virtue? Imagine that you meet a madman, who claims that he is a fish and that we are all fish. Are you going to argue with him? Are you going to undress in front of him and show him that you don't have fins? Are you going to say to his face what you think? Well, tell me!' His brother was silent and Edward went on: 'If you told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, only what you really thought, you would enter into a serious conversation with a madman and you yourself would become mad. And it is the same way with the world that surrounds us. If I obstinately told a man the truth to his face, it would mean I was taking him seriously. And to take something so unimportant seriously means to become less than serious oneself. I, you see, lie, if I don't want to take madmen seriously and become one of them myself. virtue lying lies truth Milan Kundera
4446900 Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true. truth sensationalism John Irving
e45f33b You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe you until the event. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble. truth Chuck Palahniuk
9810f2a Man is a demon, man is a god. Both true. man truth Elizabeth Gilbert
543d177 History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place. history truth 363 priscus gossip Gore Vidal
4f4f5df When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation. words feelings love truth show habit Jodi Picoult
f6f1821 Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you're surrounded by people who say 'I want mine now,' you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it. truth shortsightedness potential society human-beings Mitch Albom
6b77c2b A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway. You couldn't say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn't like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn't shave. truth shaving John Steinbeck
7eed6e7 To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. reason truth error fact Charles Darwin
0bcc4b2 What happened to truth? Did it go out of style? truth Michael Jackson
95bbdd0 The real poetry and beauty in life comes from an intense relationship with reality in all its aspects. Realism is in fact the ideal we must aspire to, the highest point of human rationality. reality life-lessons truth rational Robert Greene
54fa1a9 There's no such thing as `one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race. truth inspirational life-philosophy Mercedes Lackey
41518d7 I was a veritable Johnny Appleseed of grand expectations, and all I reaped for my trouble was a harvest of bitter fruit. marriage truth Elizabeth Gilbert
35cac99 He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death. Eppur si muove, Galileo was to say; it moves all the same. They were to be in a position to burn him if he would go on with it, with his preposterous nonsense about the earth moving round the sun, but he was to continue with the sublime assertion because there was something which he valued more than himself. The Truth. To recognize and to acknowledge What Is. That was the thing which man could do, which his English could do, his beloved, his sleeping, his now defenceless English. They might be stupid, ferocious, unpolitical, almost hopeless. But here and there, oh so seldome, oh so rare, oh so glorious, there were those all the same who would face the rack, the executioner, and even utter extinction, in the cause of something greater than themselves. Truth, that strange thing, the jest of Pilate's. Many stupid young men had thought they were dying for it, and many would continue to die for it, perhaps for a thousand years. They did not have to be right about their truth, as Galileo was to be. It was enough that they, the few and martyred, should establish a greatness, a thing above the sum of all they ignorantly had. integrity optimism truth T.H. White
d2f6d80 Even things that are true can be proved. truth Oscar Wilde
1d579fc You too must seek the sun... profound life truth Allen Ginsberg
4d36e05 Physicists have come to realize that mathematics, when used with sufficient care, is a proven pathway to truth. truth physics Brian Greene
66b4774 No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. writing truth authorship Arthur Schopenhauer
f90b5ba The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices--after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people's. truth Tom Stoppard
2b28c88 Go slowly, so that you do not bite your tail by accident. truth wisdom Christopher Paolini
f701b94 Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was. truth J.K. Rowling
85eb38b She gave up trying to understand herself, and the vast armies of the benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to their destiny by catch-words. The armies are full of pleasant and pious folk. But they have yielded to the only enemy that matters -- the enemy within. They have sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after virtue. As the years pass, they are censured. Their pleasantry and their piety show cracks, their wit becomes cynicism, their unselfishness hypocrisy; they feel and produce discomfort wherever they go. passion truth E.M. Forster
d55443c This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses. lies life truth Holly Black
dc8d582 It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used. The fact that they exist at all, their presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behavior. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizer. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness. madness humanity fear truth colonizer nuclear-threat nuclear-bomb whiteness folly white nuclear-weapons danger humans mind-control Arundhati Roy
921c682 Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him ... These things I know, Ubertino; I also have belonged to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth with white-hot iron. Well, let me tell you, the white heat of truth comes from another flame. truth torture Umberto Eco
56e46b2 It never failed to amaze me how the most ordinary day could be catapulted into the extraordinary in the blink of an eye. life truth ordinary extraordinary Jodi Picoult
1cb372b ... truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future. present time history warning future past truth depository lesseon rival example witness Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
d440d22 I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to. truth first-words iowa Bill Bryson
403dc95 It's exhausting, the energy it takes to unknow a truth. lies honesty truth lie Chuck Palahniuk
3629606 We are more severe judges of our own acts... We judge our thoughts, our intents, our secret curses, our secret hates, not only our acts. thoughts life truth self reflection acts severe judgement Anaïs Nin
07490d7 "Like" and "like" and "like"--but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing?" truth semblance Virginia Woolf
0dde786 On their deathbed men will speak true, they say. truth deathbed J.R.R. Tolkien
bba1c08 "Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all." truth semiotics Umberto Eco
0385c52 Alanna didn't approve of lying, but in a pinch a lie was sometimes better than the truth. truth Tamora Pierce
ad6bb37 The dreamers, those who misread the actual state of affairs and act upon their emotions, are often the source of the greatest mistakes in history--the wars that are not thought out, the disasters that are not foreseen reality truth realist dreamer mistakes Robert Greene
2d220f8 "Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, "I hate you, God." That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months." prayer truth Anne Lamott
7a47d33 Life is too short to be anything but real with the cast of characters God has placed in the story of your life. Love well, laugh often, and find your life in Christ. Don't hide away or be a follower. Be the wonderful unique person God made you to be, and know that your purpose will always be best when defined by your faith in him faith hope love truth inspirational Karen Kingsbury
d568fed There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God. god truth definition Victor Hugo
358cf73 [There's a] point where you have to leave the dough alone. It's silly to anthropomorphize bread, but I love the fact that it needs to sit quietly, to retreat from touch and noise and drama, in order to evolve. I have to admit, I often feel that way myself. evolution humor truth jodi-picoult reflection quietness peace food Jodi Picoult
5c47124 "How do I know you're not crazy?" she asks. "How do I know you're not the craziest dude I've ever met?" "You'll have to test me out." "You have my info," she says. "I'll think about it." "Rain," I say. "That's not your real name." "Does it matter?" "Well, it makes me wonder what else isn't real." "That's because you're a writer," she says. "That's because you make things up for a living." "And?" "And"-- she shrugs--"I've noticed that writers tend to worry about things like that." sanity lies writing reality truth socializing Bret Easton Ellis
1c00f02 What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating. truth Milan Kundera
94148ce We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it. hopes reason truth Charles Darwin
6b6ae5b Men don't need linguistic talent; they just need courage and words. truth Helen Fisher
0737876 "It may well be that we can never fully adapt to our own deformities. Unable to find a place inside ourselves for the very real pain and suffering that these deformities cause, we come here to get away from such things. As long as we are here, we can get by without hurting others or being hurt by them because we know that we are "deformed". That's what distinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities themselves are a precondition. Just as Indians wear feathers on their heads to show what tribe they belong to, we wear our deformities in the open. And we live quietly so as not to hurt one another." people truth outside-world precondition hurt lives flaws Haruki Murakami
afbda68 "Teachers're always using that "in your own words." I hate that. Authors knit their sentences tight. It's their job. Why make us unpick them, just to put it back together more shonkily? How're you s'posed to say Kapellmeister if you can't say Kapellmeister?" truth school David Mitchell
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