Untruth Quotes
In a vacuum all photons travel at the same speed. They slow down when travelling through air or water or glass. Photons of different energies are slowed down at different rates. If Tolstoy had known this, would he have recognised the terrible untruth at the beginning of Anna Karenina? 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own particular way.' In fact it's the other way around. Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalisation. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.
Jeanette Winterson
The evolution of life, and the evolutionary origin of mankind, are scientifically established as firmly and completely as any historical event not witnessed by human observers. Any concession to anti-evolutionists, suggesting that there are scientific reasons to doubt the facticity of evolution, would be propagating a plain untruth.
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Like Karl Kraus, [Wittgenstein] was seldom pleased by what he saw of the institutions of men, and the idiom of the passerby mostly offended his ear-particularly when they happened to speak philosophically; and like Karl Kraus, he suspected that the institutions could not but be corrupt if the idiom of the race was confused, presumptuous, and vacuous, a fabric of nonsense, untruth, deception, and self-deception.
Thomas Szasz
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to Him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of His disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of His doctrines, led me to try to sift them apart.
Thomas Jefferson
Truth is simple and open to all. Why do you complicate? Truth is loving and lovable. It includes all, accepts all, purifies all. It is untruth that is difficult and a source of trouble. It always wants, expects, demands. Being false, it is empty, always in search of confirmation and reassurance. It is afraid of and avoids enquiry. It identifies itself with any support, however weak and momentary. Whatever it gets, it loses and asks for more. (...).
Nisargadatta Maharaj
See, when you take a little bit of truth and then you mix it with untruth, or your theory, that's where you get people to believe. You know? It's like Hitler. Hitler said a little bit of truth, and then he mixed in "and it's the Jews' fault." That's where things get a little troublesome, and that's exactly what's happening.
Glenn Beck
Basically there's a gulf between truth and untruth, I don't want to be too mathematical about it, because I'm not very good at maths. But it's a divide between, I dunno, a film and a cartoon. I've just become this cartoon character. I try not to follow it, but when you see pictures of yourself that have been photo-shopped to show you doing something you didn't.... that's wrong. It's my worst nightmare – and being misquoted, too, especially as I'm so precious about words.
Pete Doherty
Save yourself from the wrath of Allah (swt), and do not abandon speaking the truth, even though it (apparently) causes your destruction. Know that truth does not lead into your annihilation; rather it is a saviour. Always let go of the untruth; even though it (apparently) saves you. Untruth is never a saviour, and it eventually leads into annihilation.
Musa al-Kadhim
The problem with love and God, the two of them, is how to say anything about them that doesn't annihilate them instantly with the wrong words, with untruth. . . . In this sense, love and God are equivalents. We feel both, but because we cannot speak clearly about them, we end up–wordless, inarticulate-by denying their existence altogether, and, pfffffft, they die.
Charles Baxter
A state of princes; a skulk of friars; a skulk of thieves; an observance of hermits; a lying of pardoners; a subtiltie of serjeants; an untruth of sompners; a multiplying of husbands; an incredibility of cuckolds; a safeguard of porters; a stalk of foresters; a blast of hunters; a draught of butlers; a temperance of cooks; a melody of harpers; a poverty of pipers; a drunkenship of coblers; a disguising of taylors; a wandering of tinkers; a malepertness of pedlars; a fighting of beggars; a rayful, (that is, a netful) of knaves; a blush of boys; a bevy of ladies; a nonpatience of wives; a gagle of women; a gagle of geese; a superfluity of nuns; and a herd of harlots. Similar terms were applied to inanimate things, as a caste of bread, a cluster of grapes, a cluster of nuts, &c.
Joseph Strutt
