Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials – literally, which is why I’m teaching at MIT.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

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

I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

I don’t ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, ‚It sounds good!‘ It’s got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.

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

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

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

In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.

There are really two core principles at play here. There’s giving people a voice so that people can express their opinions. Then, there’s keeping the community safe, which I think is really important. We’re not gonna let people plan violence or attack each other or do bad things.

But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

I hold a lot of things in. I’m always making sure everybody is okay. I usually don’t rage; I usually don’t curse. So for me, it’s a great thing to be able to scream and say whatever I want.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

Some of my colleagues argue that by further curtailing our Second Amendment rights, they can enhance public safety. Fine, the burden of proof is on them.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, ‚Truth is the daughter of Time.‘

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

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

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music, into searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.

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

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.