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Truth Quotes by Samuel Johnson

61 Truth quotes by Samuel Johnson

All Truth quotes Samuel Johnson’s page

A cow that yields no milk symbolizes how truth can be exhausted when people only seek vanity. The writer argues that excellence starts with truth, and that honesty may hurt or protect. He also points out that sincerity without good practice is still lacking.

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Reason and truth will prevail at last

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Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

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Truth allows no choice

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Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.

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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

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Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

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The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power.

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The first step to greatness is to be honest.

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This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,- Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd

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Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend.

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This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

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A man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish should be told.

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Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth…

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I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.

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As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more…

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The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.

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Truth, such as is necessary to the reputation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought.

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I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with…

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“Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down…

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“Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which…

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There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer…

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Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of increase can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may…

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The duty of criticism is neither to depreciate nor dignify by partial representations, but to hold out the light of reason, whatever…

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It is not uncommon to charge the difference between promise and performance, between profession and reality, upon deep design and studied deceit;…

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“Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can…

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It is, however, not necessary, that a man should forbear to write, till he has discovered some truth unknown before; he may…

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Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window and they, when relating it, say that it happened…

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Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great…

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If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in…

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“Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension…

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The rules that I shall propose concerning secrecy, and from which I think it not safe to deviate without long and exact…

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Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects…

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The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed…

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In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it;…

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“APOLOGUE (A'POLOGUE) n.s.[.]Fable; story contrived to teach some moral truth. An apologue of Æsop is beyond a syllogism, and proverbs more powerful…

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Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood

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There is always something a woman will prefer to the truth.

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A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

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It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

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In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear…

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More by Samuel Johnson

The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.

Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms…

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

If our aim is to praise, we should forget to criticize; if our aim is to criticize, we should remember to praise

All theory is against free will; all experience is for it.

Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.

It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it…

The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power.

Words are daughters of earth but ideas are sons of heaven.

“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting…

“The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then…

Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt…

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem

The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.