The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! If you can’t find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don’t deserve to wear that uniform! Star Trek: The Next Generation s5e19: The First Duty
Truth is simply an excuse for a lack of imagination. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s3e20: Improbable Cause I, Garak
I want to help you, Major. The way Captain Sisko helped me. Captain Sisko gave me the clarity to see beyond the lies, the self-deceptions that were controlling my life. He helped me to see the truth about myself. And now, I’m going to do the same for you. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s6e17: Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night, Gul Dukat to Kira
Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages. Samuel Johnson
Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it. Samuel Johnson
When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty. Hiram Johnson, attributions & variations
People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made. Shelby Foote
Narrative history is the kind that comes closest to telling the truth. You can never get to the truth, but that’s your goal. Shelby Foote
The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth. Bill Clinton 1995
The truth often poses a threat to power. JFK ***** 1991 starring Kevin Costner & Sissy Spacek & Tommy Lee Jones & Kevin Bacon & Laurie Metcalf & Gary Oldman & Michael Rooker & Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau & Joe Pesci & John Candy et al, director Oliver Stone
The truth is the most important value we have. ibid.
Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth. Truth-telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in forty years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: every single one was a liar. J Edgar Hoover
Socrates is not just expounding noble ideas in a vacuum. He is in the middle of a war between those who think truth is absolute and those who think truth is relative. He is fighting that war with everything he has. Robert M Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ch29, 1974
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. Erwin Knoll
Media manipulation in the US today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretence that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth. Mark Crispin Miller
Journalists say a thing that they know isn’t true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true. Arnold Bennett, The Title, 1918
‘We all know the same truth and our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.’ Imagine … Woody Allen: A Documentary I, Woody, BBC 2013
The theatre is traditionally where people go to hear the truth. David Mamet
The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth. Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot. Czesław Miłosz
In September 2008 the Church of England issued a belated apology for its attack on Charles Darwin. Darwin hasn’t killed God: religious people have simply found different ways to justify their faith. Has he destroyed morality? Again, no. To understand the origin of morality doesn’t mean you must cast it aside. But Darwin has changed the terms of trade. He’s returned us to Nature. To its wonder, to its glory, and to its danger. Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution questions almost everything we thought we knew about ourselves. Where we come from. Why we behave as we do. The origins of our morality. It isn’t comfortable and it isn’t easy but the more science looks at this theory, the truer it turns out to be. Man is the truth-seeking primate. Darwin has given us a great truth. And there is no going back. Andrew Marr, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, BBC 2009
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. Charles Darwin
I care about searching for truth and making a theory of the world. And Christianity or Buddhism for that matter provides an alternative theory of the world. That’s something I feel I have something to say about. Jonathan Miller, The Atheism Tapes, Steven Weinberg
The doctrine of the Buddha is taught with reference to two truths – conventional truth and ultimate truth.
Those who do not understand the difference between these two truths do not understand the profound essence of the doctrine of the Buddha. Nagarjuna, Root Verses of the Middle Way
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour. Robert Frost, The Black Cottage
You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can’t lead to a good conclusion. Julian Assange
To know when to use the truth is the essence of successful deception. Agatha Christie
Truth is always a delusion. Friedrich Durrenmatt
Facts are many but the truth is one. Rabindranath Tagore
The truth is more important than the facts. Frank Lloyd Wright
From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts. Tom Stoppard
Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Man’s mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth. Desiderius Erasmus
You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth. Niels Bohr
Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence. Henri Frederic Amiel
Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult. George Eliot
We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman 2006 starring Xavarian Dramatic Society, Warren Able Theatre starring Daniel Valez & Amanda Magnavita & Michael Longo & Michael Maldonado et al, Biff to Willy, with Linda & Happy
Betrayal is the only truth that sticks. Arthur Miller
Without free speech no search for truth is possible; without free speech, no discovery of truth is useful. Charles Bradlaugh
It is a fool’s prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak. Neil Gaiman, Dream Country
You can’t handle the truth! A Few Good Men 1992 starring Tom Cruise & Demi Moore & Jack Nicholson & Kevin Bacon & Kiefer Sutherland & Kevin Pollak & Wolfgang Bodison & James Marshall & J T Walsh & J A Preston & Michael DeLorenzo & Noah Wyle & Cuba Gooding et al, director Rob Reiner, Nicholas to Cruise in court
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. George Carlin
Is it true? All of it? Kill the Irishman 2011 starring Ray Stevenson & Val Kilmer & Christopher Walken & Linda Cardellini & Marcus Thomas & Vinnie Jones & Tony Lo Bianco & Paul Sorvino & Laura Ramsey & Mike Starr & Bob Gunton et al, director Jonathan Hensleigh, her to him
Scepticism is the first step towards truth. Denis Diderot