In whatever adulation you get, there’s truth and there’s not truth. And wherever they dog you, and they say it was horrible – there’s truth and there’s not truth. It’s human nature to like to read the adulation more.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

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

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

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.

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

There’s people that appreciate what I do; there’s people that criticize it.

Fiction is not necessarily about what you know, it’s about how you feel. That is the truth about fiction, and the other truth is that all science is a tool, and we use our tools not to actualise what we know, but to implement how we feel.

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

The truth is, I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves.

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.

Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

What the heck is true love? I remember feeling, back when I was 12 and ‚going‘ with this girl, ‚Is this true love?‘

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you, and I think it’s like a battery: you’ve got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few critical comments questioning the legality of the act.

Men must know their limitations.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Every man is his own hell.

Observe all men, thyself most.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

I’ve been to those places where it’s ‚poor, pitiful me.‘

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

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

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.

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

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

It is always good to know which ideas cannot be checked directly, but it is not necessary to remove them all. It is not true that we can pursue science completely by using only those concepts which are directly subject to experiment.

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

O, had I but followed the arts!

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.