Obstacles To Truth Quotes

In a time when, as Woodson puts it, 'book sales trump the quality of ideas... ~ Joseph A. Tainter

The lesson here is, the way of truth is a very narrow path. Jesus was the Word made flesh. He spoke the Word of truth because He was truth. So when he began to explain to his disciples what had to come to pass in order that man's redemption could be attained, he was speaking God's truth. But when Peter reacted as he did, he was using his five senses and was going directly against the revealed Word of truth. Thus he was stepping off the narrow path and into error. ~ Patrick Heron

The gods did not reveal, from the beginning,
All things to us, but in the course of time
Through seeking we may learn and know things better.
But as for certain truth, no man has known it,
Nor shall he know it,neither of the gods
Nor yet of all the things of which I speak.
For even if by chance he were to utter
The final truth, he would himself not know it:
For all is but a woven web of guesses ~ Xenophanes

What was at all events not permanently hidden from him was a truth much less invidious about his years of darkness. It was the strange scheme of things again: the years of darkness had been needed to render possible the years of light. ~ Henry James

To live a hard life was to make solid and impregnable every way in, until no openings remained and the soul hid in darkness, and no one else could hear its screams, its railing at injustice, its long, agonizing stretches of sadness. Hardness without created hardness within.

Sadness was, she well knew, not something that could be cured. It was not, in fact, a failing, not a flaw, not an illness of spirit. Sadness was never without reason, and to assert that it marked some kind of dysfunction did little more than prove ignorance or, worse, cowardly evasiveness in the one making the assertion. As if happiness was the only legitimate way of being. As if those failing at it needed to be locked away, made soporific with medications; as if the causes of sadness were merely traps and pitfalls in the proper climb to blissful contentment, things to be edged round or bridged, or leapt across on wings of false elation.

Scillara knew better. She had faced her own sadness often enough. Even when she discovered her first means of escaping it, in durhang, she'd known that such an escape was simply a flight from feelings that existed legitimately. She'd just been unable to permit herself any sympathy for such feelings, because to do so was to surrender to their truth.

Sadness belonged. As rightful as joy, love, grief and fear. All conditions of being.

Too often people mistook the sadness in others for self-pity, and in so doing revealed their own ha ~ Steven Erikson

She's back to find out where she fits and what to do next. She was doing that before but when the truth came out it sent her world crumbling so she ran. It's a fucking miracle she's back here. I want her back here, Nan. You may not want to hear this but I love her. I will stop at nothing to make sure she's safe. She is secure and no one and I do mean no one, not even my sister, makes her feel unwanted. ~ Abbi Glines

You must not believe anyone in the search for truth; you have to find out for yourself. But although you are on your own, help will come when it is really needed. ~ Barry Long

The authentic and pure values, truth, beauty, and goodness, in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act. All the other advantages of instruction are without interest. ~ Simone Weil

It is through our technology that we have been able to fly far away from earth to learn, in truth, how precious it is. It is no coincidence that our awakening to the special nature of our world and to its uniquely balanced environment and its limitations coincided with our first glimpse of earth from outer space, through the eyes of astronauts, television cameras and photographic equipment. ~ Dixie Lee Ray

If a man says to you, "This is the truth," and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught by him again. But a man who has lived the truth
and you have believed in what he has lived
he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing. ~ Harper Lee

No, I am not apologizing. He needs to apologize to me. He called me names all day and pushed me. It is funny how it went unnoticed, but you want to punish me, the good guy. When I defend myself, then you want to look? ~ Charlena E. Jackson

If you want to be drunk, become drunk with an idea. If you want pleasure, have pleasure from the pursuit of your passion. If you want to be indoctrinated, then be so by the natural law of humanism. ~ Abhijit Naskar

A mundane lie hiding an exotic truth is deception; an exotic lie hiding a mundane truth is storytelling. Deception may be necessary to preserve life, but storytelling makes life worth living. ~ Christopher Buehlman

What is it that constitutes virtue, Mrs. Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist? - Is he a strong man that overcomes great obstacles and performs surprising achievements, though by dint of great muscular exertion, and at the risk of some subsequent fatigue, or he that sits in his chair all day, with nothing to do more laborious than stirring the fire, and carrying his food to his mouth? If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.'

'I will lead him by the hand, Mr. Markham, till he has strength to go alone; and I will clear as many stones from his path as I can, and teach him to avoid the rest - or walk firmly over them, as you say; - for when I have done my utmost, in the way of clearance, there will still be plenty left to exercise all the agility, steadiness, and circumspection he will ever have. - It is all very well to talk about noble resistance, and trials of virtue; but for fifty - or five hundred men that have yielded to temptation, show me one that has had virtue to resist. And why should I take it for granted that my son will be one in a thousand? - and not rather prepare for the worst, and suppose he will be like his - like the rest of mankind, unless I take care to prevent it? ~ Anne Bronte

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I sometimes feel that I am trying to dig in the world around me. I'm involved in another kind of archaeology to look for another kind of truth, and the moment I find, the moment I am separated from that life, the moment I am sort of in a world, every time I have gone out and performed in the, in the cinema for example, if you do two or three films on the trot you suddenly have this impression that you're becoming separate or separated from the world around you. ~ Simon McBurney

When we are driven by ego and a relentless need to succeed, it's easy to blindly neglect the relationships, self-care and truth that will create joy and authentic fulfillment in our lives. ~ Shannon Tanner

Waverleys know where to find the truth, they just can't stomach it. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

Promise me, man. If anything ever happens to me, promise me you'll take care of
Angelina. She's something special, Micah. Heart way too big for her own good. I worry
because she doesn't see everyone for who they are. She's too busy looking for the good.
I've tried to get her to adopt some cynicism, but the truth of the matter is, she wouldn't be
the same girl if she did. ~ Maya Banks

The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities. ~ Aristotle.

The voice that testifies to truth cannot be stilled. ~ Aurelius Prudentius Clemens

The truth was dawning on me of how terrifying it was not to be numb, but to be aware, to have facts, retain facts, be present, be adult. ~ Anna Burns

All that you may achieve or discover you will regard as a fragment of a larger pattern of the truth which from the separate approaches every true scholar is striving to descry. ~ Abbott L. Lowell

George was, in truth, one of the sort who evidently have made some mistake in coming into this world at all, as their internal furniture is in no way suited to its general courses and currents. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

No one wanted to deal with damaged. It made them uncomfortable. ~ Cambria Hebert

These are among the people I've tried to know twice, the second time in memory and language. Through them, myself. They are what I've become, in ways I don't understand but which I believe will accrue to a rounded truth, a second life for me as well as them.

Cracking jokes in the mandatory American manner of people self-concious about death. This is the humor of violent surprise.

How do you connect things? Learn their names.

It was a strange conversation, full of hedged remarks and obscure undercurrents, perfect in its way.

I was not a happy runner. I did it to stay interested in my body, to stay informed, and to set up clear lines of endeavor, a standard to meet, a limit to stay within. I was just enough of a puritan to think there must be some virtue in rigorous things, although I was careful not to overdo it.
I never wore the clothes. the shorts, tank top, high socks. Just running shoes and a lightweight shirt and jeans. I ran disguised as an ordinary person.

-When are you two going to have children?
-We're our own children.

In novels lately the only real love, the unconditional love I ever come across is what people feel for animals. Dolphins, bears, wolves, canaries.

I would avoid people, stop drinking.

There was a beggar with a Panasonic.

This is what love comes down to, things that happen and what we say about them.

But nothing mattered so much on thi ~ Don DeLillo

In other words, thinking aims at and ends in contemplation, and contemplation is not an activity but a passivity; it is the point where mental activity comes to rest. According to traditions of Christian time, when philosophy had become the handmaiden of theology, thinking became meditation, and meditation again ended in contemplation, a kind of blessed state of the soul where the mind was no longer stretching out to know the truth but, in anticipation of a future state, received it temporarily in intuition. ~ Hannah Arendt

Every honest attempt to discover the truth and depict things faithfully is a struggle against one's own subjectivity and partiality, one's individual and class interests; one can seek to become aware of these as a source of error, while realizing that they can never be finally excluded. ~ Arnold Hauser

Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: And whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.' [Matthew 16:25.]…He who is 'The Way, the Truth and the Life' [see John 14:6] has herein set forth an immutable law. …Specifically stated, this law is, 'We live our lives most completely when we strive to make the world better and happier.' The law of pure nature, survival of the fittest, is self-preservation at the sacrifice of all else; but in contrast to this the law of true spiritual life is, deny self for the good of others. … ~ David O. McKay

The only freedom we've got is not to react to anything, but to turn within and know the truth. ~ Robert Adams

A jolt of rage now forced him into her face, their noses almost touching. At once she was the one pulling back.
"Is this yours and Fricker's little game, Geline? To what purpose? Why not keep to the truth? It's disgusting enough." His voice was ragged with fury. "Why make up lies when it's so unnecessary? I was a gambler, a prodigious drinker. I whored my way through most of London's lower echelons. I am profoundly fortunate not to be riddled with disease."
Her mouth crimped with distaste.
"Yes, indeed. Don't want to mention that, do we? There's a price to be paid for treating this vessel," he tapped his chest, "without respect. As to that, we've both been fortunate. ~ Cynthia Wicklund