Sunday, May 24, 2009 – Tell the Truth
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor. ~ Neil Gaiman
A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure. ~ Segal’s Law
There used to be a real me, but I had it surgically removed. ~ Peter Sellers
There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. ~ Alfred North Whitehead
What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. ~ Bertrand Russell
You always admire what you really don’t understand. ~ Blaise Pascal
Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit. ~ Edward R. Murrow
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. ~ Gloria Steinem
Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre
Unity without verity is no better than conspiracy. ~ John Trapp
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. ~ Mark Twain
There are many more wrong answers than right ones, and they are easier to find. ~ Michael Friedlander
Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion – and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion … while Truth again reverts to a new minority. ~ Soren Kierkegaard
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. ~ Umberto Eco
Truth has very few friends and those few are suicides. ~ Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943
The truth is more important than the facts. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. ~ Niels Bohr
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. ~ Sir Winston Churchill
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. ~ Oscar Wilde
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. ~ Henry Louis Mencken, A Little Book in C Major, 1916
Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain’t lawful tender for a loaf of bread. ~ Josh Billings
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously. ~ Thomas Sowell
People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty. ~ Richard J. Needham
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships. ~ Bertrand Russell
Reality is bad enough. Why should I tell the truth? ~ Patrick Sky
No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, “Yes,” you know he is a crook. ~ Groucho Marx
It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. ~ Jerome K. Jerome
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. ~ Samuel Johnson
Solitaire is the only thing in life that demands absolute honesty. ~ Hugh Wheeler
Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect. ~ Stephen Butler Leacock
For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation. ~ Charles Baudelaire
It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. ~ Noel Coward
Just Above Sunset 