What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

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.

Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around.

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

God made and governs the world invisibly, and has commanded us to love and worship him and no other God; to honor our parents and masters, and love our neighbours as ourselves; and to be temperate, just, and peaceable, and to be merciful even to brute beasts.

States are not moral agents.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

I think carrying moral baggage is very dangerous for an artist. If you have a duty, it’s to be true and not cover up the cracks.

Can the mind see the truth of its own incapacity to know the unknown? Surely if I see very clearly that my mind cannot know the unknown, there is absolute quietness.

If you want to become fully mature in the Lord, you must learn to love truth. Otherwise, you will always leave open a door of deception for the enemy to take what is meant to be yours.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

It’s okay to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

When virtue is lost, benevolence appears, when benevolence is lost right conduct appears, when right conduct is lost, expedience appears. Expediency is the mere shadow of right and truth; it is the beginning of disorder.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?

Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.

Trust should be the basis for all our moral training.

Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

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

Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.

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

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it’s spoken.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

Seeing is not always believing.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

There may not be one Truth – there may be several truths – but saying that is not to say that reality doesn’t exist.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

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

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.