Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

It’s funny because I’ve made a living off of words, but words get in the way of what you really want to say.

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

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

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

The profoundly ‚atomic‘ character of the universe is visible in everyday experience, in raindrops and grains of sand, in the hosts of the living, and the multitude of stars; even in the ashes of the dead.

If a child from an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe comes to Boston, is raised in Boston, that child will be indistinguishable in language capacities from my children growing up here, and vice versa.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

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

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

Syllables govern the world.

I’m in awe of the universe, but I don’t necessarily believe there’s an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.

Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it’s true.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‚like‘ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.

The earth is supported by the power of truth; it is the power of truth that makes the sun shine and the winds blow; indeed all things rest upon truth.

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

I believe nothing happens by mistake. You know, the universe has a divine plan. That sounds dramatic.

War is what happens when language fails.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

Every now and then I will see a word as if for the first time, and suddenly appreciate that Evian is ‚naive‘ spelled backward, or that Bosnia is an anagram of ‚bonsai.‘

Most shareholders have little if any control over the companies in which they own stock, even if they own a million shares.

The human race may be the only intelligent beings in the galaxy.

The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

Justice is truth in action.

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

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

We’re a blip in the existence of the universe, and we’re constantly trying to pull each other down. Not doing things to help each other.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

These people are very unskilled in arms… with 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished.

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

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

We’ve gotta become the Martians. I’m a Martian – I tell you to become Martians. And we’ve gotta go to Mars and civilize Mars and build a whole civilization on Mars and then move out, 300 years from now into the universe. And when we do that, we have a chance of living forever.

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

Observations indicate that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. It will expand forever, getting emptier and darker.

When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative, it starts to affect our creative juices.

Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.