18 quotations about truth

1. All the durable truths that have come into the world within historic times have been opposed as bitterly as if they were so many waves of smallpox —H. L. Mencken
2. As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive —Richard Hofstadted
3. Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation, because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves —Charles Caleb Colton
4. Random truths are all I find stuck like burrs about my mind —Phyllis McGinley
5. Rich honesty dwells like a miser … in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster —William Shakespeare
6. Truth … drag it out and beat it like a carpet —Hortense Calisher
7. Truth is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull —Samuel Johnson
8. Truth is as difficult to lay hold on as air —Walter Savage Landor
9. Truth … is not a thing to be thrown about loosely, like small change; it is something to be cherished and hoarded and disbursed only when absolutely necessary —H. L. Mencken
10. The truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch … you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
11. The truth kept wandering in and out of her mind like a lost child, never pausing long enough to be identified —Margaret Millar
12. Truth, like a bird, is ever poised for flight at man's approach —Jean Brown
13. Truth, like a suit of armor, stubbornly resists all attempts to penetrate it —Robert Traver

    In his novel, People Versus Kirk, Traver continues the simile with "… while the lie, under probing, almost invariably reveals some chinks and cracks."

14. Truth is like a torch, the more it is shook, the more it shines —Sir William Hamilton

    Modernized from "The more 'tis shook, it shines."

15. Truth, like gold, is not less so for being newly brought out of the mine —John Locke
16. Truth, like light, blinds —Albert Camus

    Camus prefaces his simile from The Fall as follows: "Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth."

17. Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in its excess —Walter Savage Lando
18. A truth's prosperity is like a jest's; it lies in the ear of him that hears it —Samuel Butler

Similes Dictionary, 1st Edition. © 1988 The Gale Group, Inc