The collection / 601 fragments

Truth.

Explore passages mentioning truth, true. Topic suggestions use transparent word matching, not scholarly classification. Editorial meanings and lexical matches are discovery aids, not independent authentication of a quotation.

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01c. 1872 AD

From the Practice of the Wise.—To become wise we must will to undergo certain experiences, and accordingly leap into their jaws. This, it is true, is very dangerous. Many a “sage” has been eaten up in the process.

Friedrich Nietzsche / quote

02c. 1872 AD

Losing Ourselves.—When we have first found ourselves, we must understand how from time to time to lose ourselves and then to find ourselves again.—This is true on the assumption that we are thinkers. A thinker finds it a drawback always to be tied to one person.

Friedrich Nietzsche / quote

03c. 1872 AD

Dying for “Truth.”—We should not let ourselves be burnt for our opinions—we are not so certain of them as all that. But we might let ourselves be burnt for the right of possessing and changing our opinions.

Friedrich Nietzsche / quote

04c. 1872 AD

Finding our “Double” in Nature.—In some country places we rediscover ourselves, with a delightful shudder: it is the pleasantest way of finding our “double.”—How happy must he be who has that feeling just here, in this perpetually sunny October air, in this happy elfin play of the wind from morn till eve, in this clearest of atmospheres and mildest of temperatures, in all the serious yet cheerful landscape of hill, lake, and forest on this plateau, which has encamped fearlessly next to the terrors of eternal snow: here, where Italy and Finland have joined hands, and where the home of all the silver colour-tones of Nature seems to be established. How happy must he be who can say, “True, there are many grander and finer pieces of scenery, but this is so familiar and intimate to me, related by blood, nay even more to me!”

Friedrich Nietzsche / quote

05c. 1872 AD

Expressing an Error Disagreeably.—It is not to every one's taste to hear truth pleasantly expressed. But let no one at least believe that error will become truth if it is disagreeably expressed.

Friedrich Nietzsche / quote

06c. 515 BC

The Master said, 'Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

07c. 515 BC

1. The Master said, 'At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. 2. 'At thirty, I stood firm. 3. 'At forty, I had no doubts. 4. 'At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. 5. 'At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. 6. 'At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

08c. 515 BC

The Master said, 'A scholar, whose mind is set on truth, and who is ashamed of bad clothes and bad food, is not fit to be discoursed with.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

09c. 515 BC

The Master said, 'They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

10c. 515 BC

The Master said, 'Ch'i, by one change, would come to the State of Lu. Lu, by one change, would come to a State where true principles predominated.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

11c. 515 BC

The Master said, 'I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my lesson.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

12c. 515 BC

The Master said, '"If good men were to govern a country in succession for a hundred years, they would be able to transform the violently bad, and dispense with capital punishments." True indeed is this saying!'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

13c. 515 BC

The Master said, 'Since I cannot get men pursuing the due medium, to whom I might communicate my instructions, I must find the ardent and the cautiously-decided. The ardent will advance and lay hold of truth; the cautiously-decided will keep themselves from what is wrong.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

14c. 515 BC

The Master said, 'The object of the superior man is truth. Food is not his object. There is plowing;— even in that there is sometimes want. So with learning;— emolument may be found in it. The superior man is anxious lest he should not get truth; he is not anxious lest poverty should come upon him.'

Confucius (traditional attribution) / quote

15Undated

1. If we could renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom, it would be better for the people a hundredfold. If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness, the people would again become filial and kindly. If we could renounce our artful contrivances and discard our (scheming for) gain, there would be no thieves nor robbers. 2. Those three methods (of government) Thought olden ways in elegance did fail And made these names their want of worth to veil; But simple views, and courses plain and true Would selfish ends and many lusts eschew.

Laozi (traditional attribution) / quote

16Undated

The grandest forms of active force From Tao come, their only source. Who can of Tao the nature tell? Our sight it flies, our touch as well. Eluding sight, eluding touch, The forms of things all in it crouch; Eluding touch, eluding sight, There are their semblances, all right. Profound it is, dark and obscure; Things' essences all there endure. Those essences the truth enfold Of what, when seen, shall then be told. Now it is so; 'twas so of old. Its name—what passes not away; So, in their beautiful array, Things form and never know decay. How know I that it is so with all the beauties of existing things? By this (nature of the Tao).

Laozi (traditional attribution) / quote

17Undated

1. Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, earnestly carry it into practice. Scholars of the middle class, when they have heard about it, seem now to keep it and now to lose it. Scholars of the lowest class, when they have heard about it, laugh greatly at it. If it were not (thus) laughed at, it would not be fit to be the Tao. 2. Therefore the sentence-makers have thus expressed themselves:— 'The Tao, when brightest seen, seems light to lack; Who progress in it makes, seems drawing back; Its even way is like a rugged track. Its highest virtue from the vale doth rise; Its greatest beauty seems to offend the eyes; And he has most whose lot the least supplies. Its firmest virtue seems but poor and low; Its solid truth seems change to undergo; Its largest square doth yet no corner show A vessel great, it is the slowest made; Loud is its sound, but never word it said; A semblance great, the shadow of a shade.' 3. The Tao is hidden, and has no name; but it is the Tao which is skilful at imparting (to all things what they need) and making them complete.

Laozi (traditional attribution) / quote

18Undated

1. What (Tao's) skilful planter plants Can never be uptorn; What his skilful arms enfold, From him can ne'er be borne. Sons shall bring in lengthening line, Sacrifices to his shrine. 2. Tao when nursed within one's self, His vigour will make true; And where the family it rules What riches will accrue! The neighbourhood where it prevails In thriving will abound; And when 'tis seen throughout the state, Good fortune will be found. Employ it the kingdom o'er, And men thrive all around. 3. In this way the effect will be seen in the person, by the observation of different cases; in the family; in the neighbourhood; in the state; and in the kingdom. 4. How do I know that this effect is sure to hold thus all under the sky? By this (method of observation).

Laozi (traditional attribution) / quote

19Undated

1. There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it;—for there is nothing (so effectual) for which it can be changed. 2. Every one in the world knows that the soft overcomes the hard, and the weak the strong, but no one is able to carry it out in practice. 3. Therefore a sage has said, 'He who accepts his state's reproach, Is hailed therefore its altars' lord; To him who bears men's direful woes They all the name of King accord.' 4. Words that are strictly true seem to be paradoxical.

Laozi (traditional attribution) / quote

20c. 1486 AD

Truth was the only daughter of time.

Leonardo da Vinci / quote

21c. 1486 AD

So vile a thing is a lie that even if it spoke fairly of God it would take away somewhat from His divinity; and so excellent a thing is truth that if it praises the humblest things they are exalted. 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, though not of disorderly minds. But thou who feedest on dreams dost prefer the sophistry and subterfuges in matters of importance and uncertainty to what is certain and natural, though of lesser magnitude.

Leonardo da Vinci / quote

22c. 1486 AD

Obstacles in the way of truth are finally punished.

Leonardo da Vinci / quote

23c. 1486 AD

I am well aware that not being a literary man the presumptuous will think that they have the right to blame me on the ground that I am not a man of letters. Vainglorious people! Know they not that I could make answer as Marius did to the Roman people, and say: They who make a display with the labours of others will not allow me mine? They will say that being unskilled in letters I cannot find true expression for the matters of which I desire to treat; they do not know that in my subjects experience is a truer guide than the words of others, for experience was the teacher of all great writers, and therefore I take her for guide, and I will cite her in all cases.

Leonardo da Vinci / quote

24c. 1486 AD

Experience never errs; it is only your judgements that err, ye who look to her for effects which our experiments cannot produce. Because given a principle, that which ensues from it is necessarily the true consequence of that principle, unless it be impeded. Should there, however, be any obstacle, the effect which should ensue from the aforesaid principle will participate in the impediment as much or as little as the impediment is operative in regard to the aforesaid principle.

Leonardo da Vinci / quote