Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Friends accept you the way you are.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

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

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

I want people to understand they have to live their own lives the way they want to and not just do what we do.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

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

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

Time discovers truth.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.

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

The thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Seeing is not always believing.

I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.

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.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

I don’t believe in endorsing a product that you don’t want to endorse.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

The people who truly know me know what I’m like. There have been people who try to say things that aren’t fair, and I check them. And then they don’t like me because I checked them.

I always wanted a great love affair: something that feels big and full, really honest, and enough. No moment should feel slight, false, or a little off. For me, it had to be everything.

There’s no one thing that is true. They’re all true.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

Live truth instead of professing it.

I never want to change so much that people can’t recognize me.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand. I know what I believe. I’m confident in what I know. And I’m gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don’t like it, I understand.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route.

Everyone assumes I practise all of my own laws but I don’t. I think anybody who did would be a horrible ugly person to be around.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.

I’m not going to say I’m cool, because I don’t really feel that. I just don’t care at all, and I guess that’s what people think is cool.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

We can’t just choose to tell some facts and not others because we don’t want to upset people. We have to tell it like it is.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.