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

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

Solitude is independence.

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

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

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

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.

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

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.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

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

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

I’m old enough and cranky enough now that if someone tried to tell me what to do, I’d tell them where to put it.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

I mean, I never liked being told what to do. It’s one of the reasons I dropped out of school.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

Being a kid’s not easy. You’re transforming and becoming a human being. At some point, you have everyone taking care of you, and then, all of a sudden, you’re out in the world.

As long as the people don’t fear the truth, there is hope. For once they fear it, the one who tells it doesn’t stand a chance. And today, truth is still beautiful… but so frightening.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

If I am judged for my work, many myths about me as an autocrat or otherwise would become clearer. I feel false propaganda will not last, and truth will ultimately prevail.

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

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

How should a man be capable of grooming his own horse, or of furbishing his own spear and helmet, if he allows himself to become unaccustomed to tending even his own person, which is his most treasured belonging?

The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew’s cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo’s choice to know the truth. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.

The lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.

In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.

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.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

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

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

God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

I’m not looking for sympathy at all.

Remember: your bosses prefer to keep you in dependent positions. It is in their interest that you do not become self-reliant, and so they will tend to hoard information. You must secretly work against this and seize this information for yourself.

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

I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

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

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.