100 Inspirational Quotes About Truth to Enlighten Your Mind and Soul

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."

- Thomas Jefferson

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

- Mark Twain

"No legacy is so rich as honesty."

- William Shakespeare

"Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

- Confucius

"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."

- Soren Kierkegaard

"You can’t lie to liars without becoming a liar. We can’t cheat a cheater without becoming a cheater. Fighting fire with fire doesn’t protect trust it merely leaves you with the ashes of your integrity."

- Michael Josephson

"Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it."

- Mark Twain

"If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything."

- Mark Twain

"At its root, lying is intentional dishonesty, deliberately trying to make a person believe something that is not true."

- Michael Josephson

"Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships."

- Stephen R. Covey

"The highest compact we can make with our fellow is — “Let there be truth between us two forevermore.”"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Reputation, trust and credibility are assets no organization can afford to lose and the surest way to lose them is to lie."

- Michael Josephson

"Standing courageously for an unpopular opinion isn’t easy, but the rewards of standing courageously for the truth will last forever."

- Rick Warren

"There is one truth that must be sought after first before you can go further and that truth is that you must take charge of your own life for you cannot lead a life of truth if you let someone else take responsibility for your thoughts or actions."

- Byron Pulsifer

"We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square."

- Michelle Obama

"Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away."

- Ismail Haniyeh

"A harmful truth is better than a useful lie."

- Thomas Mann

"By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth."

- Peter Abelard

"Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things."

- Isaac Newton

"Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones."

- John Lennon

"Honest communication is built on truth and integrity and upon respect of the one for the other."

- Benjamin E. Mays

"How many lies can you tell before you are a liar? Once someone has lied to us we look back on past conversations and ask: “What else has he lied to me about?”"

- Michael Josephson

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on."

- Winston Churchill

"Worse than telling a lie is spending the rest of your life staying true to a lie."

- Robert Brault

"I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won’t."

- Mark Twain

"Liars can soften resentment with apologies and promise to never lie again, but remorse alone won’t heal the wound or obliterate the scar caused by a lie."

- Michael Josephson

"Lying to avoid problems is like getting drunk to forget them. It’s a temporary solution with the worst sort of hangover."

- Michael Josephson

"Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist."

- Mary Kay Ash

"The truth is the only thing worth having, and, in a civilized life, like ours, where so many risks are removed, facing it is almost the only courageous thing left to do."

- E.V. Lucas

"Never hesitate to say what ought to be said, even if the price of doing so is losing one’s reputation. That is the true spirit of Christ."

- António Vieira

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."

- Samuel Johnson

"To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man pick’d out of ten thousand."

- William Shakespeare

"No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world."

- Thomas Carlyle

"Every lie is two lies — the lie we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it."

- Robert Brault

"The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold."

- Aristotle

"The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted."

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie: A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby."

- George Herbert

"We tell lies when we are afraid… afraid of what we don’t know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us."

- Tad Williams

"Cherish the friend who tells you a harsh truth, wanting ten times more to tell you a loving lie."

- Robert Brault

"Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

"Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so."

- Mark Twain

"Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth."

- Mark Twain

"Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true."

- Robert Brault

"The truth needs so little rehearsal."

- Barbara Kingsolver

"Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it…"

- Jonathan Swift

"Falsehood will fly, as it were, on the wings of the wind, and carry its tales to every corner of the earth; whilst truth lags behind; her steps, though sure, are slow and solemn."

- Thomas Francklin

"Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need."

- Ellen DeGeneres

"The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty."

- Zig Ziglar

"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity."

- Buddha

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."

- Albert Einstein

"To live in the light of a new day and an unimaginable and unpredictable future, you must become fully present to a deeper truth—not a truth from your head, but a truth from your heart; not a truth from your ego, but a truth from the highest source."

- Debbie Ford

"Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again."

- William Cullen Bryant

"If I could persuade every single person in the world to accept all of my beliefs, it would not make those beliefs correct. Nor would it change what is actually true."

- David Bercot

"Peace if possible, truth at all costs."

- Martin Luther

"Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are."

- Anne Lamott

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

- Winston Churchill

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light."

- George Washington

"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people."

- Virginia Woolf

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

- Abraham Lincoln

"The object of the superior man is truth."

- Confucius

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."

- General Norman Schwarzkopf

"A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent."

- William Blake

"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable."

- James A. Garfield

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

- Arthur Conan Doyle

"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."

- Leo Tolstoy

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

- Buddha

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

- Jesus Christ

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant."

- H. L. Mencken

"Goodness is about character – integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like."

- Dennis Prager

"Devotion to Truth is the sole justification for our existence."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."

- John F. Kennedy

"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."

- Winston Churchill

"Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance."

- W. Clement Stone

"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."

- Giordano Bruno

"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth."

- William Faulkner

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness."

- Leonardo da Vinci

"Half a truth is often a great lie."

- Benjamin Franklin

"It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."

- Noel Coward

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."

- Galileo Galilei

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

- Oscar Wilde

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."

- C. S. Lewis

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."

- Harry S. Truman

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."

- Elvis Presley

"Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness."

- Khalil Gibran

"The words of truth are always paradoxical."

- Lao Tzu

"Lies are the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the god of the free man."

- Maxim Gorky

"Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it."

- Emily Dickinson

"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth."

- Niels Bohr

"Whatever satisfies the soul is truth."

- Walt Whitman

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."

- Andy Rooney

"If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow."

- Emile Zola

"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."

- John Calvin

"The truth is, nobody really possesses it."

- Simone Weil

"Honesty is something you can’t wear out."

- Waylon Jennings

"Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind."

- Austin O’Malley

"You can’t outrun a lie forever. Eventually, you just end up hurting the people you care about. Sometimes it’s easier to just face the music and accept the fact that you made a mistake."

- Nate Heywood

"Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it."

- Claude Adrien Helvétius

"Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true."

- Swami Vivekananda

"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives."

- Mark Twain

"When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback."

- Bill Copeland

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

- Benjamin Disraeli

"Much truth is spoken, that more may be concealed."

- Charles John Darling

"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."

- Henry Louis Mencken

"Speak the truth, but leave immediately after."

- Slovenian Proverb

"You can hate me. You can go out there and say anything you want about me, but you will love me later because I told you the truth."

- Mary J. Blige

"Communication works best when we combine appropriateness with authenticity, finding that sweet spot where opinions are not brutally honest but delicately honest."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"Telling a truth is not only a matter of character, but is also a matter of appreciating factual situations and representing them without bias."

- M. K. Soni

"The truth is anyone can be the difference; all it takes is using whatever you have, to do whatever you can."

- Darius Graham

"The truth is more important than the facts."

- Frank Lloyd Wright

"Honesty pays, but it don’t seem to pay enough to suit some people."

- Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard

"A half truth is a whole lie."

- Yiddish Proverb

"Be truthful, nature only sides with truth."

- Adolf Loos

"Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity."

- Coco Chanel

"The first reaction to truth is hatred."

- Tertullian

"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."

- Benjamin Disraeli

"Facts are stubborn things."

- Ronald Reagan

"All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns."

- Bruce Lee

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy."

- Tertullian

"I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it."

- Herodotus

"We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter."

- Denis Diderot

"The universe is transformation: life is opinion."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Infinite love is the only truth. Everything else is illusion."

- David Icke

"Sometimes the truth hurts. And sometimes it feels real good."

- Henry Rollins

"It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar."

- Jerome K. Jerome

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality."

- Iris Murdoch

"The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time."

- David Bowie

"The cruelest lies are often told in silence."

- Adlai Stevenson

"People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty."

- Richard J. Needham

"Betrayal is the only truth that sticks."

- Arthur Miller

"All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie."

- Bob Dylan

"Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around."

- Frank A. Clark

"Honesty is the highest form of intimacy."

- unknown

"If you want to ruin the truth, stretch it."

- Author Unknown

"Adversity is the first path to truth."

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

- Unknown

"Honesty is an expensive gift. Don’t expect it from cheap people."

"I’m sorry if you don’t like my honesty, but to be fair I don’t like your lies."

"Truth fears no questions."

- Unknown

"A lie travels round the world while truth is putting her boots on."

"Respect is earned. Honesty is appreciated. Trust is gained. Loyalty is returned."

- Unknown

"Beware of the half truth. You may have gotten hold of the wrong half."