Untruth Quotes - Page 3

• A man may think an untruth as well as speak one.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Men, Thinking, May

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1825). “The Works of the Late ... Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Collected by Thomas Moore, Etc”, p.49

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• The truth, it is felt, becomes untruth when your enemy utters it.

  George Orwell

  Enemy, Felt

  George Orwell (1987). “The complete works of George Orwell: Animal farm”

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• Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth. It strikes at the root of our confidence ever after.

  William Hazlitt

  Blow, Roots, Giving

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.488

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• Some persons are exaggerators by temperament. They do not mean untruth, but their feelings are strong, and their imaginations vivid, so that their statements are largely discounted by those of calm judgment and cooler temperament. They do not realize that we always weaken what we exaggerate.

  Tryon Edwards

  Strong, Mean, Imagination

  Tryon Edwards (2015). “The New Dictionary of Thoughts”, p.409, Ravenio Books

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• If philosophy is still necessary, it is so only in the way it has been from time immemorial: as critique, as resistance to the expanding heteronomy, even if only as thought's powerless attempt to remain its own master and to convict of untruth, by their own criteria, both a fabricated mythology and a conniving, resigned acquiescence.

  Theodor Adorno

  Philosophy, Acquiescence, Way

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.22, Univ of California Press

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• As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not.

  Jack Kornfield

  Wall, Ideas, Insecurity

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• Lying is a crime the least liable to variation in its definitions. A child will upon the slightest temptation tell an untruth as readily as the truth. That is, as soon as he can suspect that it will be to his advantage; and the dread that he afterward has of telling a lie is acquired principally by his being threatened, punished, and terrified by those who detect him in it, till at length, a number of painful impressions are annexed to the telling of an untruth, and he comes even to shudder at the thought of it.

  Joseph Priestley

  Children, Lying, Numbers

  Joseph Priestley (1831). “The Theological and Miscellaneous Works. Ed. with Notes by John Towill Rutt”, p.196

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• I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Atheist, Thinking

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.55, Basic Books

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• The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reigns supreme.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Safety, Justice, Humanity

  Encyclical Letter "Spe Salvi", w2.vatican.va. November 30, 2007.

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• If the soul is impartial in receiving information, it devotes to that information the share of critical investigation the information deserves, and its truth or untruth thus becomes clear. However, if the soul is infected with partisanship for a particular opinion or sect, it accepts without a moment's hesitation the information that is agreeable to it. Prejudice and partisanship obscure the critical faculty and preclude critical investigation. The results is that falsehoods are accepted and transmitted.

  Ibn Khaldun

  Soul, Receiving, Prejudice

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• A belief, however necessary it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with truth. The falseness of a judgment is not for us necessarily an objection to a judgment. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species preserving, perhaps even species cultivating. To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophy, Mean, Evil

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• In a vacuum all photons travel at the same speed. They slow down when travelling through air or water or glass. Photons of different energies are slowed down at different rates. If Tolstoy had known this, would he have recognised the terrible untruth at the beginning of Anna Karenina? 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own particular way.' In fact it's the other way around. Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalisation. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Glasses, Air, People

  "Written on the Body". Book by Jeanette Winterson, 1992.

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• Like Karl Kraus [Wittgenstein], was seldom pleased by what he saw of the institutions of men, and the idiom of the passerby mostly offended his ear - particularly when they happened to speak philosophically; and like Karl Kraus, he suspected that the institutions could not but be corrupt if the idiom of the race was confused, presumptuous, and vacuous, a fabric of nonsense, untruth, deception, and self-deception.

  Thomas Szasz

  Confused, Men, Race

  "Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry". Book by Thomas Szasz and Karl Kraus (p. 67), March 1, 1990.

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• Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact how hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Believe, Slaughterhouse Five, Facts

  "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (Chapter 5, p. 129), 1969.

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• Experience convinces me that permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth & violence. Even if my belief is a fond delusion, it will be admitted that it is a fascinating delusion.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Outcomes, Violence, Belief

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.78, A&C Black

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• Being a person's true friend means endorsing the untruths he holds dearest.

  Robert Wright

  True Friend, Mean, Persons

  Robert Wright (1994). “The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life”, Pantheon

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• At the heart of the gay marriage argument is an untruth: unions of two men or women are not the same as unions of husband and wife. The law cannot make it so, it can only require us to paint pretty pictures to cover up deep truths embedded in human nature.

  Maggie Gallagher

  Husband, Heart, Gay

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• [Kierkegaard] did not care for large public events because every crowd is in itself an untruth. The only way out is isolation, aloofness. Only the individual is a reality and only the individual is true. Maybe the process of isolation in an individual is one of the most important matters that exists. Is not the whole point of this world for people to separate and become individuals?

  Mati Unt

  Reality, People, Solitude

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• What may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person. But that need not worry the seeker. When there is honest effort, it will be realised that what appears to be different truths are like apparently different countless leaves of the same tree.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Healing, Worry, Effort

  "Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi".

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• Real racist jokes or sexist jokes aren't funny - not because they're offensive, but because they're not true. As soon as a joke is based on an untruth, it's not funny.

  Ricky Gervais

  Real, Racist Jokes, Offensive

  "Ricky Gervais: The ESQ+A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. January 12, 2012.

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• I looked at Mum and realized -- twang! -- that she was telling an untruth. A big untruth. And I remember thinking in that instant how thrilling and grown-up it must be to say something so completely untrue, as opposed to the little amateur fibs I was already practiced at -- horrid little apprentice sinner that I was --like the ones about you'd already said your prayers or washed under the fingernails. Yes, I was impressed. I too must learn to say these gorgeous untruths. Imaginary kings and queens would be my houseguests when I was older.

  Christopher Buckley

  Queens, Kings, Prayer

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• All human life is sunk deep in untruth; the individual cannot pull it out of this well without growing profoundly annoyed with his entire past, without finding his present motives (like honor) senseless, and without opposing scorn and disdain to the passions that urge one on to the future and to the happiness in it.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Passion, Past, Annoyed

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1984). “Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, p.37, U of Nebraska Press

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• Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished- by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long established position; instead, seek to turn it by flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But, in any such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth- for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into untruth.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Real, Ideas, Giving

  B.H. Liddell Hart (2015). “Why Don't We Learn from History?”, p.63, Lulu Press, Inc

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• To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophy, Mean, Evil

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.202, Modern Library

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• In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings a year! It is not worth it!

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Girl, Easter, Giving Up

  Jerome K. Jerome (2014). “Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog”, p.240, Diderot Publishing

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