Truism Quotes

• It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Inspirational, Life, War

  Robert A. Heinlein (2014). “Revolt in 2100”, p.124, Hachette UK

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• It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creeds into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Law, Political, Mind

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• Everybody wants peace. That's a truism. There is no point in accomplishing through war what you can accomplish through peace.

  Norman Finkelstein

  War, Want, Accomplish

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• And it has become a kind of a truism in the study of creativity that you can't be creating anything with less than 10 years of technical knowledge immersion in a particular field.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Creativity, Years, Creating

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  The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

  Lily Tomlin

  Inspirational, Funny, Meaningful

  Quoted in People, 26 Dec. 1977. Although now associated with Tomlin, this saying appears anonymously in Robert Reisner, Graffiti (1971), in the form "Remember, even if you win the rat race - you're still a rat." Rosalie Maggio, in New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, states that William Sloane Coffin said "Even if you win the rat-race, you're still a rat" as a chaplain at Williams College or Yale University in the 1950s or 1960s.

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• Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter.

  George Orwell

  Gun, Men, Bully

  George Orwell, Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: An age like this, 1920-1940”, Harvill Secker

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• I've never had a problem with the old truism about dancing to architecture. I think you can dance to architecture. There's some pretty funky architecture to dance to.

  Rob Chapman

  Thinking, Dancing, Architecture

  "ROB CHAPMAN (author of “A VERY IRREGULAR HEAD: THE LIFE OF SYD BARRETT”)". Revolt Of The Apes Interview, revoltoftheapes.com. January 25, 2011.

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• It's a familiar truism that at any one moment, financial markets are dominated by either fear or greed. But the healthiest markets are those that are animated by both fear and greed at the same time.

  James Surowiecki

  Fear, Greed, Financial

  James Surowiecki (2005). “The Wisdom of Crowds”, p.241, Anchor

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• Avarice, greed, concupiscence and so forth are all based on the mathematical truism that the more you get, the more you have. The remark of that it is more blessed to give than to receive is based on the human truth that the more you give away in love, the more you are. It is not just for the sake of other people that tells us to give rather than get, but for our own sakes too.

  Frederick Buechner

  Blessed, People, Giving

  FaceBook post by Frederick Buechner from Mar 27, 2014

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• If at first you don't succeed, try management.

  Stephen Hawking

  Success, Perseverance, Persistence

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• There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Real, Real Courage, One Thing

  "G.F. Watts". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1904.

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• If at first you don't succeed, try hard work.

  William Feather

  Success, Perseverance, Hard Work

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• It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide.

  Luo Guanzhong

  Long, World, United

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• You know, it's a truism that writers for children must still be children themselves, deep down, must still feel childish feelings, and a child's surprise at the world.

  A. S. Byatt

  Children, Feelings, World

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• Is religion a force for good? The evidence of history and the evidence of current events cast doubt on the truism.

  James A. Haught

  Religious, Evil, Doubt

  James A. Haught (1990). “Holy horrors: an illustrated history of religious murder and madness”

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• It's a truism that denials never quite catch up with charges. Honest journalists who may have mistakenly printed false information know that the most prominent retraction never quite undoes the damage done by the original publication.

  Tom Wicker

  May, Information, Never Quit

  "IN THE NATION; Lesson of Lattimore" by Tom Wicker, www.nytimes.com. June 9, 1989.

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• As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality. For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie-deliberate, contrived and dishonest-but the myth-persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Mythology distracts us everywhere.

  John F. Kennedy

  Lying, Moving, Past

  Yale University Commencement Address, delivered 11 June 1962

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• It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Book, Math, Thinking

  An Introduction to Mathematics ch. 5 (1911)

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• The [tenth] amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered.

  Harlan F. Stone

  Rights, States, Amendments

  United States v. Darby Lumber Company, 312 U.S. 100, (124), 1941.

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• Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the Ten Commandments are a historical document that contains moral, ethical, and legal truisms that any person of any religion or even an atheist can recognize and appreciate.

  Cliff Stearns

  Atheist, Appreciate, Historical

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• The notion of the perfect whole, the ultimate solution in which all good things coexist, seems to me not merely unobtainable--that is a truism--but conceptually incoherent. ......Some among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Loss, Perfect, Choices

  Isaiah Berlin (2012). “The Proper Study Of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays”, p.11, Random House

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• You don't get to be a respected intellectual by uttering truisms in monosyllables.

  Noam Chomsky

  Intellectual

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• One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This too shall pass.

  Alain de Botton

  Age, Aging, This Too Shall Pass

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• The new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity, and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies, as if it required any courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Courage, Art, Real

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• If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.

  William Edward Hickson

  Inspirational, Success, Perseverance

  "Try and Try Again". Poem by William Edward Hickson,

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