Truth

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. –Gloria Steinem

The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it, but there it is. –Winston Churchill

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth, to see it like it is and to tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth and live with the truth. That’s what we’ll do. –Richard M. Nixon

All great truths begin as blasphemies. –George Bernard Shaw

[Pham Xuan] An was the Quiet Vietnamese, the representative figure who was at once a lifelong revolutionary and an ardent admirer of the United States. He says he never lied to anyone, that he gave the same political analyses to Time that he gave to Ho Chi Minh. He was a divided man of utter integrity, someone who lived a lie and told the truth. –Thomas A. Bass

Always be aggressive with the truth. –Walter J. Karabian

“What is truth?” said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. –Sir Francis Bacon

Truth May Be Blamed, but Cannot Be Shamed --embroidered sampler

Put your witnesses’ task into perspective. Tell them that if you boil it all down, testifying is about only one thing: answering questions in a way that satisfies jurors that the witnesses are telling the truth. That is different from simply telling the truth—which, by itself, is insufficient in a trial. A witness can be honest, but a talented cross-examiner can still make him look like a liar. Or a witness may be honest but unconvincing. To be effective, the witnesses must accept that there is more than one way to tell the truth—and that the two of you will find the most credible way to tell it. –David Berg

(from a law school application) The truth dawned on me like the worst hangover of all time.

Say what you will about Charles Barkley—when he tells you he’s going to do something, he’ll either do it, or he won’t do it. –Karl Malone

I will be as harsh as truth. –William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the Liberator (1831-1865)

Truth springs from arguments among friends. –David Hume

Take the version of it that Richard Rorty, a philosopher who teaches at Stanford, once lightheartedly offered: “Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with.” The problem is that contemporary Americans and Europeans won’t let you get away with that characterization of truth; so, by its own standard, it cannot be true. –Jim Holt

Truths are illusions that we have forgotten are illusions. –Nietzsche

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied. –Claud Cockburn

It’s difficult hanging on to the truth while admitting error. –Ezra Pound

If we have free speech truth will look after itself. –Milton

Truth is not a valid defense when trying to correct Wikipedia. –Eric Newton, 2007