Quotes
Quotes about Truth
For truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be lov'd needs only to be seen.
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There's in you all that we believe of heaven,--
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,--
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Know then this truth (enough for man to know),--
"Virtue alone is happiness below."
Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song.
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,
Where in nice balance truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
And truths divine came mended from that tongue.
Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies;
And sure he will: for Wisdom never lies.
This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,--
Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd.
Time still, as he flies, brings increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.
Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell:
'T is virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,--
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
For 't is a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
