132 Truth Quotes To Inspire

In a world where we're constantly bombarded with information, seeking out the truth can sometimes feel like sifting through a never-ending maze. Whether you're on a quest for personal growth, deeper understanding, or simply looking for a dose of daily inspiration, truth quotes offer a beacon of clarity and wisdom. We've curated a compelling collection of the top 132 truth quotes that promise to enlighten, motivate, and resonate with every reader. Prepare to embark on a journey through powerful words that celebrate honesty, integrity, and the timeless pursuit of truth.

1. “Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.” - Stephanie Klein

2. “There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness;....and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.” - Robert Browning

3. “Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.” - Andre Gide

4. “Something went klunk. Like a nickel dropping in a soda machine. One of those small insights that explains everything. This was puberty for these boys. Adolescence. The first date, the first kiss, the first chance to hold hands with someone special. Delayed, postponed, a decade's worth of longing--while everybody around you celebrates life, you pretend, suppress, inhibit, deprive yourself of you own joy--but finally ultimately, eventually, you find a place where you can have a taste of everything denied.” - David Gerrold

5. “Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.” - Albert Camus

6. “In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.” - William Penn

7. “Some truths are truths, no matter who says them.” - Patricia Briggs

8. “Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.” - Orson Scott Card

9. “Similarly with regard to truth, won't we say that a soul is maimed if it hates a voluntary falsehood, cannot endure to have one in itself, and is greatly angered when it exists in others, but is nonetheless content to accept an involuntary falsehood, isn't angry when it is caught being ignorant, and bears its lack of learning easily, wallowing in it like a pig?” - Plato

10. “The truth is the last thing that matters,' she said. 'And you can believe one thing of the truth and me: I keep it well hidden, inside my heart.” - Philippa Gregory

11. “Erklären heißt verzeihen, erklärt zu werden heißt Verzeihung erlangen [...]” - J.M. Coetzee

12. “The great majority of us are required to live a constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected by it if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what bring brings you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn’t just a fiction, it’s part of our physical body, and our soul exists in space and is inside us, like teeth in our mouth. It can’t be forever violated with impunity.” - Boris Pasternak

13. “What I'm looking for is not out there, it is in me.” - Hellen Keller

14. “It would be well to realize that the talk of ‘humane methods of warfare’, of the ‘rules of civilized warfare’, and all such homage to the finer sentiments of the race are hypocritical and unreal, and only intended for the consumption of stay-at-homes. There are no humane methods of warfare, there is no such thing as civilized warfare; all warfare is inhuman, all warfare is barbaric; the first blast of the bugles of war ever sounds for the time being the funeral knell of human progress… What lover of humanity can view with anything but horror the prospect of this ruthless destruction of human life. Yet this is war: war for which all the jingoes are howling, war to which all the hopes of the world are being sacrificed, war to which a mad ruling class would plunge a mad world.” - James Connolly

15. “Lady, I do not make up things. That is lies. Lies are not true. But the truth could be made up if yo know how. And that's the truth.” - Lily Tomlin

16. “I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's, but behind all of them, there's only one truth and that is that there is no truth... No truth behind all truths is what I and this church preach! Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.” - Flannery O'Connor

17. “You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.” - Joss Whedon

18. “The perfect killer has no identity.” - Brent Weeks

19. “We never know when our last day on earth will be. So, love with full sincerity, believe with true faith, and hope with all of your might. Better to have lived in truth and discovered life, than to have lived half heartedly and died long before you ever ceased breathing. ” - Cristina Marrero

20. “It's funny whom we end up choosing to love and who ends up choosing to love us. It's rarely the people we think it should be.” - Robin Jones Gunn

21. “truth is that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong.” - Martin Heidegger

22. “A women can run, hide, play and have fun but she will shine far better when she just smiles without none.” - Santosh Kalwar

23. “We have our Arts so we won't die of Truth” - Ray Bradbury

24. “I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth. Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, self-indulgent, predatory dollar-chasers” - Ayn Rand

25. “All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.” - Thomas Jefferson

26. “The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.” - Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

27. “The topic of compassion is not at all religious business; it is important to know it is human business, it is a question of human survival.” - Dalai Lama XIV

28. “It took me years to realize that I could do all kinds of drastic acts like quitting jobs, relationships, towns (or all of the above), but what showed up at the next job, relationship, & town was still ME.” - Summer Pierre

29. “Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.” - Joe Abercrombie

30. “Bitter though it may be to many, Cadfael concluded, there is no substitute for truth, in this or any case.” - Ellis Peters

31. “There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.” - Greta Garbo

32. “Because, sometimes, things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.” - Suzanne Collins

33. “Sometimes a clearly defined error is the only way to discover the truth” - Benjamin Wiker

34. “It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear.” - Henry David Thoreau

35. “We should've been different breeds. There can only be one lion in a small cage. It's not important if the other lion is sleeping or crouching in the corner. The only important thing is that...it's a lion.” - Seyoung Kim

36. “Regarding alien beings and UFO sightings, They're less about 'where' or 'when' to find, more about 'how' or using 'what' to identify.” - Toba Beta

37. “If I had a shiny gun I could have a world of fun Speeding bullets through the brains Of the folks that cause me pains :)” - Dorothy Parker

38. “All I could say was, "I don't know what to do." I remember her taking me by the shoulders and looking me in the eye with a calm smile and saying simply, "Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

39. “It's written, 'seek and ye shall find'. But first, 'imagine what you seek'.Otherwise, you will end up searching everything everywhere forever.” - Toba Beta

40. “There's no guarantee of disaster-free in any world religion,but love, faith and knowledge give men hope and willpower.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

41. “Sometimes, some lies that spoken with high confidencecould be more receptive than facts that spoken with doubt.” - Toba Beta

42. “The truth doesn't mind being told every once in a while.” - Alysha Speer

43. “Tell people the hammered truth, and it will ring like steel against an anvil.” - Elizabeth Haydon

44. “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.” - Mark Twain

45. “Fake sUCKs!” - Toba Beta

46. “Smartass Disciple: If you are really a master, then make me see miracles!Master of Stupidity: Go to sleep and dream, then wake up thirty years later!” - Toba Beta

47. “Do you really believe ... that everything historians tell us about men – or about women – is actually true? You ought to consider the fact that these histories have been written by men, who never tell the truth except by accident.” - Moderata Fonte

48. “Fifty percent of something is better than than one hundred percent of nothing.” - Chuck Barris

49. “If we didn't fear the truths we didn't hear, we'd lose the need to fear the ones we did.” - Mira Grant

50. “Coffee, she'd discovered, was tied to all sorts of memories, different for each person. Sunday mornings, friendly get-togethers, a favorite grandfather long since gone, the AA meeting that saved their life. Coffee meant something to people. Most found their lives were miserable without it. Coffee was a lot like love that way. And because Rachel believed in love, she believed in coffee, too.” - Sarah Addison Allen

51. “Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying.” - St. Vincent de Paul

52. “An ant can't define shape of an elephant solely from its' point of view.They have to unify all views. It's a way for ant to understand elephant.In order to understand true realities, men need to do mental blending.” - Toba Beta

53. “Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You can’t leak your hidden intentions if you don’t think they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception, the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the better to hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registered somewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact with other people.” - Steven Pinker

54. “Tudo parecia organizado da melhor forma possível, como se de fato o mundo constasse somente de palavras, como se assim o próprio horror fosse trazido para dimensões seguras, como se para cada aspecto de uma coisa houvesse um reverso, para cada mal um bem, para cada dissabor um prazer, para cada infelicidade uma felicidade e para cada mentira um quinhão de verdade.” - W.G. Sebald

55. “Why is wisdom so fair? Why is beauty so wise?Because all else is temporary, while beauty and wisdom are the only real and constant aspects of truth that can be perceived by human means.And I don't mean the kind of surface beauty that fades with age, or the sort of shallow wisdom that gets lost in platitudes.True beauty grips your gut and squeezes your lungs, and makes you see with utmost clarity exactly what is before you.True wisdom then steps in, to interpret, illuminate, and form a life-altering insight.” - Vera Nazarian

56. “Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.” - Irvin D. Yalom

57. “With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.” - Aristotle

58. “A humble man will always receive the best that others have to offer; for he recognizes the truth” - Jeremy Aldana

59. “Sometimes when you get older—and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently—things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're a part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they're not true—why, then you get offended.” - Sara Gruen

60. “All stories have a curious and even dangerous power. They are manifestations of truth -- yours and mine. And truth is all at once the most wonderful yet terrifying thing in the world, which makes it nearly impossible to handle. It is such a great responsibility that it's best not to tell a story at all unless you know you can do it right. You must be very careful, or without knowing it you can change the world.” - Vera Nazarian

61. “No one, from pontiffs to professors, has a monopoly on the truth. In the end, we are all just travelers--not scientists or mystics or any one brand of thinker. By nature, we are scientists and mystics, reductionists and holists, left-brained and right-brained, mixed up creatures trying to catch an occasional glimpse of the truth. The best we can do is to be tolerant of both sides of our nature--knowing that these reflect the twin aspect of the universe--and learn from whatever wisdom is offered.” - David Darling

62. “The number of people who believe a thing has no bearing upon its truth.” - Marie Sexton

63. “Nothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.” - Wilkie Collins

64. “If you are involved with the intensity of crescendo situations, with the intensity of tragedy, you might begin to see the humor of these situations as well. As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.” - CHOGYAM TRUNGPA

65. “At first, they'll only dislike what you say, but the more correct you start sounding the more they'll dislike you.” - Criss Jami

66. “I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.” - Mitch Albom

67. “I actually like how doctors talk. I like the sound of science. I like how words you don't understand explain things you can't understand.” - R.J. Palacio

68. “...if desire is predominant it can deform love between man and woman and rob them both of it.” - Pope John Paul II

69. “A man without pleasure is a man without any idea what life is about” - Michael Grant

70. “Кристалният Джакомо, макар и във вериги, бил по-силен от него, защото истината е по-силна от всяко нещо, по-светла от деня, по-страшна от ураган.” - Gianni Rodari

71. “Everything in life has some good in it. And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more--it's sad, but that's the truth.” - Banana Yoshimoto

72. “The truth is .. I'm okay with people not liking me. I'm not okay with them pretending that they do. Keep it real. Everybody ain't for everybody.” - Nakia R. Laushaul

73. “Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may—until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk.” - Raymond Chandler

74. “You need to understand that truth is stranger than fiction. Listen: people are willing to swallow any old tripe as long as you say it without flinching. They want to be told stuff. And they don't want to doubt you either. It's too hard.” - Craig Silvey

75. “As when astronaut Mike Mulhane was asked by a NASA psychiatrist what epitaph he'd like to have on his gravestone, Mulhane answered, "A loving husband and devoted father," though in reality, he jokes in "Riding Rockets," "I would have sold my wife and children into slavery for a ride into space.” - Mary Roach

76. “When you start putting pen to paper, you see a side of your personal truth that doesn't otherwise reveal itself in conversation or thought.” - Anthony Kiedis

77. “No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

78. “Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true.” - John Irving

79. “All we know is what we're told.” - Ashly Lorenzana

80. “I learned a little of beauty - enough to know that it had nothing to do with truth - and I found, moreover, that there was no great literary tradition; there was only the tradition of the eventful death of every literary tradition.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

81. “The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world. All we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them!” - Muhammad Yunus

82. “If this book has made any point clear, I hope it's that things don't have to be real to be true. Or vice versa.” - Grant Morrison

83. “To hate others is ugly.To hate yourself is uglier.” - Hlovate

84. “The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.” - Anton Chekhov

85. “Apparently people don't like the truth, but I do like it; I like it because it upsets a lot of people. If you show them enough times that their arguments are bullshit, then maybe just once, one of them will say, 'Oh! Wait a minute - I was wrong.' I live for that happening. Rare, I assure you” - Lemmy Kilmister

86. “,the rest of the girls pretended not to notice. That's just what best friends do.” - Sara Shepard

87. “One doesn't intentionally to alter the truth, just enhance it and make it more memorable.” - John Alexander

88. “It is what it is. Isn't that how these things always go? They are what they are. We just get to cope.” - Mira Grant

89. “A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power does not shield the speaker from the consequences of doing so; only comparable power or anonymity can do that.” - Nick Harkaway

90. “It’s a truth I love you,It’s a hope you do,And may I live and die with it,Not knowing that you don’t.” - Dr. Amit Abraham

91. “Time turns our lies into truths.” - Gene Wolfe

92. “You have to notice the truth in order to be able to avoid it.” - Sarah Schulman

93. “But try to remember that a good man can never die. You will see your brother many times again-in the streets, at home, in all the places of the town. The person of a man may go, but the best part of him stays. It stays forever.” - William Saroyan

94. “...His words were barely audible. That was all right; they weren’t intended for anyone except the woman who wasn’t there. “I’m so sorry... for everything... why? ... why did you leave me?” As the tears coated his cheeks he told himself, Anthony Rawlings doesn’t cry. He doesn’t apologize, and he doesn’t cry...” - Aleatha Romig

95. “The devil has not vanished simply because people refuse to believe he exists, no more than God has...” - E.A. Bucchianeri

96. “Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference.George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.Martha: Amen.” - Edward Albee

97. “We both knew that what I said was the truth, as well as being a lie. The pure and honest answer was pinging between us, hovering above the weeds.” - Sonya Hartnett

98. “I looked out the window and saw the street and railroad tracks, the woods beyond. Beyond the woods, the county of which they were a part. And so on, until it all dissolved into the larger thing: my mother's house becoming every other house as I once had seen it, sitting atop the southern end of a broad river valley, close enough to the the mountains that every few years a scared black bear would wander down into the remaining forest, and close enough to the ocean that those early English settlers took it as the farthest point they'd go upstream, the geology of the place preventing them from having any choice other than the one wherein they said, "We are lost; therefore we will call this home." And close enough that as a child I had been teased by older kids who said if I only tried hard enough I would smell salt water, and I, believing, stood among the light poles and the gulls in the parking lots of A&Ps and cried when I knew that it was true despite the fact that they had meant to lie, as children sometimes do.” - Kevin Powers

99. “Some girls are pretty, and it’s like they were destined for it. They were meant to be pretty, and as for the rest of us, well, we get to exist on the outer edges of life. It’s like moths. They’re the same as butterflies, aren’t they? They’re just gray. They can’t help being gray, they just are. But butterflies, they’re a million different colors, yellow and emerald and cerulean blue. They’re pretty. Who’d dare kill a butterfly? I don’t know of a single soul who’d lift a finger against a butterfly. But most anybody would swat at a moth like it was nothing, and all because it isn’t pretty. Doesn’t seem fair, not at all.” - Jenny Han

100. “The truth is helpless when up against perception” - Zack W. Van

101. “We tend to be judged because of our actions.” - Roxy Writer

102. “The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries.” - John Stuart Mill

103. “There is some fiction, in all fact; and some fact, in all fiction.” - T. Scott McLeod

104. “Mythmaking is the evolutionary enterprise of translating truths.” - Terry Tempest Williams

105. “Proper lighting is everything, Julianna.” - Wendelin Van Draanen

106. “I remember Robyn saying once ‘Talking about yourself can be selfish or generous’. When I asked what she meant, she said: ‘If you never talk about yourself, about your problems and stuff, that’s selfish, because you’re not giving your friends a chance to help you. And if you talk about yourself all the time, you’re selfish and boring.” - John Marsden

107. “The moment you tell someone else is the moment you become a whiner and the world’s smallest violin starts to play. The truth is, we all have problems.” - J.A. Redmerski

108. “The truth is, it's really only okay to be yourself if that self is within an accepted range of 'normal'.” - Stacey Kade

109. “She sat back down, arms once again crossed over her breasts. It was the most direct she’d ever spoken to him, and it felt liberating. Unfortunately, the resentment coursing through her veins wouldn’t allow her to relish her new found independence. She expected her words to incite anger; after all, she’d experienced his anger before. Nevertheless, carelessly and unapologetically Claire forged ahead, “I would prefer the words, but you are welcome to say, one through four, if that’s easier for you.” - Aleatha Romig

110. “And that's when I realize the thing about the truth. It always comes out, no matter what you do.” - Lauren Barnholdt

111. “Her life was one endless loop that she raced around, with steep banked curves so she could never change or slow down. It just delivered her back to herself, over and over and over.” - Chris Cleave

112. “A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set us a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist. Already there are countless people who would think it scandalous to falsify a scientific text-book, but would see nothing wrong in falsifying an historical fact.” - George Orwell

113. “Truth is sometimes more important than the facts.” - Gary Copeland Lilley

114. “We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it?” - Erik Qualman

115. “...people quote proverbs without realizing they're really in awe of the authority of their truth and the power of their expression...” - John Geddes

116. “You don’t have to feed the lie if you don’t want it to. If you make it credible it will become that, but only in your mind and only as disproportionate as you’ve decided it is. Truth has a way of being more persistent and if the two ever meet, truth will win.” - Howard L. Salter

117. “...I only told you about it because I thought I might get a laugh out of you for once even if it wasn't the truth, Jessie. Things don't have to be true to talk about 'em, you know.” - Marsha Norman

118. “And, like poor Phaedra, we fall in love not with who we want to fall in love with, but with one who moves us, and sometimes it is the last person we should fall in love with. Our involuntary choice is not always the right one, and sometimes it is actually the worst one, hence our suffering. And then, of course, there is the completely different situation of the loving people where, over the years, the love they once felt for each other fades and they can't go on. They feel their love dying, but are unable to bring it back to life.” - Francois Lelord

119. “They say truth is the first causality of war.” - Captain Price

120. “My books are likely to contain food stains and rings from my tea cups. A book is to be lived with and used.” - Kristin Cashore

121. “eyes never lies, but doesn't mean it's true” - Tun Teja

122. “People sometimes talk about the power of first impressions, and believe me, there is truth to it.” - Ann Brashares

123. “To find is the thing.” - Pablo Picasso

124. “First, you're sorry for invading my privacy for years, years before I even knew you existed. Second, you're sorry for kidnapping me, isolating, controlling me, and manipulating me. Third, you're sorry for lying to me, pretending you cared and oh yearh, marrying me. Fourth, listen carefully Tony, this is the big one...you're sorry for framing me for attempted murder, resulting in incarceration in a federal penitentiary.""I am deeply sorry for one and four. I did provide you with an alternative destination for number four. I am not proud of two, but three would never have happened without it. I am not, and never will be sorry for three. And, for the record, I never lied about or pretended to love you. I didn't realize it at first, but I have loved you since before you knew my name. And, you forgot our divorce. I am sincerely sorry for that also.” - Aleatha Romig

125. “I'm probably something like 95% chicken nugget” - Jeff Kinney

126. “Unlikely things are often true . . .” - Sheridan Hay

127. “…If one who slays one is a murderer then he who slays a thousand is not a hero,' said Lalu.” - Mulk Raj Anand

128. “People are basically good, and when they are in possession of the full truth, they usually do the right things.” - Bryant McGill

129. “If 'truth' is an 'unveiled reality,' then my truth may not be your truth yet!” - Evinda Lepins

130. “Place your allegiance and respect in what is everlasting and real, not in the transitory and false.” - Bryant McGill

131. “I'm not sure I'll ever know the meaning of life or what comes for us after death, but I know it's more than the hysteria people make it out to be. It's about freeing your soul when no one else can; turning thirty and still feeling like you're seventeen. It's about taking chances on a whim, embracing the rain during the storm, and smiling so damn much that you start to cry. It's never regretting, never forgetting, and always being.It's kissing underwater and touching in the dark. Loving even when you think it's emotionally impossible and surviving someway and somehow. It's about living life with a full heart and an overflowing glass.I live life on the edge. I dream, I care, and I belong.I know there's a here and now.I know that I want it.” - Nadège Richards

132. “It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about.” - Criss Jami