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Truth Quotes

    “There can be no liberation when our most intimate relationships are built on—and really inflected by—deception, abuse, misdirection, antiblackness, patriarchy, and bald-faced lies.”

    Kiese Laymon, Heavy (Page 239)

      “For the first time in my life, I realized telling the truth was way different from finding the truth, and finding the truth had everything to do with revisiting and rearranging words. Revisiting and rearranging words didn’t only require vocabulary; it required will, and maybe courage. Revised word patterns were revised thought patterns. Revised thought patterns shaped memory. I knew, looking at all those words, that memories were there. I just had to rearrange, add, subtract, sit, and sift until I found a way to free the memory.”

      Kiese Laymon, Heavy (Page 86)

        “If your children lie to you, who has made them afraid to tell the truth?”

        Unknown, via No Excuses! (Page 255)

          “Bliss is the only criterion of whether you are arriving closer to truth or not. The closer you come to truth, the more blissful you become; the farther away from truth, the more miserable. Misery is nothing but distance from truth; bliss is closeness, intimacy.”

          Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 176)

            “Never believe anything unless you have experienced it. Never form any prejudice, even if the whole world is saying that something is so, unless you have encountered it yourself.”

            Osho, Everyday Osho (Page 131)

              “Believe those who search for the truth; doubt those who have found it.”

              André Gide, via Think Like A Monk (Page 196)

                “Believe those who search for the truth; doubt those who have found it.”

                André Gide, via Think Like A Monk (Page 196)

                  “If it is not right, don’t do it: if it is not true, don’t say it.”

                  Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 118)

                    “Calculated honesty is a stiletto. There is nothing more degrading than the friendship of wolves: avoid that above all. The good, honest, kindly man has it in his eyes, and you cannot mistake him.”

                    Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 99)

                      “If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.”

                      Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 50)

                        “If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”

                        Marcus Aurelius

                          “As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth — whatever the truth may be — that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.”

                          June Jordan, Some Of Us Did Not Die

                            “The exposure of a lie is as valuable to a community as a clearly expressed truth.”

                            Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 271)