The Truth And Nothing But Lies Quotes

So, you think your coffee-addicted mother is amusing." She pushed at his shoulder. "I'll get even with you. I'll show your naked baby pictures to your girlfriend." ~ Chapter 9 The Truth and Nothing but Lies ~ Cheri Vause

Eternity, so understood, is not an extension of time, not even an indefinite time. It is, rather, a vertical dimension cutting through time at each of its moments. It is the confrontation with the full moon through the trees dark with the day's rain. It is the goodness of an act or the truth of a witness which avail nothing in the order of time, yet are still irreducibly good. It is the awareness of the intensity of the blue sky on a summer day.
…
The pain of the grief suffered by a loved one has a similar quality. It once was, and it is no more. There were events which led up to it, and events which followed it, and, for practical purposes, it makes every kind of sense to think of it in those terms, in the order of time. Yet there is another perspective that will not be denied: recognizing that grief in its purity, in its eternal validity before God. So, too, the beauty of the trillium or the goodness of a moral act which changed nothing and yet, for all eternity, stands out in its nobility. Humans are beings capable of perceiving all that. They are capable of perceiving the creation not only in the order of time but in the order of eternity, lifting up its moments out of time's passage into eternity in the eternal validity of truth, goodness, and beauty of their joy and sorrow. ~ Erazim V. Kohák

You should have know this, Mari, that I would help you."
She was smiling again as she wiped her eyes. "Maybe I should have known. But I didn't, Alain. You are a Mage, and sometimes my memories of what happened in the waste and in Ringhmon and at Dorcastle have seemed like some kind of hallucination. I didn't know how you would react when I found you. I was actually ... Alain, I was afraid that when I found you I'd discover that you'd gone back to being like you were when we first met. That you'd just look at me as if I didn't exist and walk away. I should have realized that wouldn't happen. I should have known that you'd help without question. You keep saying that truth doesn't exist, buy you are true. There's nothing false about you. ~ Jack Campbell

Whether that lady's gentle mind,
No longer with the form combined
Which scattered love, as stars do light,
Found sadness where it left delight,

I dare not guess; but in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.

That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odors there,
In truth have never passed away:
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.

For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death or change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.

(--Conclusion, Autumn - A Dirge) ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

The last lesson we must learn before we don our maester's chains. The glass candle is meant to represent truth and learning, rare and beautiful and fragile things. It is made in the shape of a candle to remind us that a maester must cast light wherever he serves, and it is sharp to remind us that knowledge can be dangerous. Wise men may grow arrogant in their wisdom, but a maester must always remain humble. The glass candle reminds us of that as well. Even after he has said his vow and donned his chain and gone forth to serve, a maester will think back on the darkness of his vigil and remember how nothing that he did could make the candle burn ... for even with knowledge, some things are not possible. ~ George R R Martin

Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Jane knew from Dom's flinch that he'd been hoping for a different response, but she couldn't help it--she spoke the truth.
When he acted like a gentleman, as he had at dinner, she remembered exactly why she'd fallen in love with him. But when he reminded her of how he'd made assumptions and, worse yet, used those assumptions to decide her future for her, she couldn't bear it. Because he was still doing it, still demanding his way and dictating terms and ignoring her concerns.
She understood the courtly gentleman. It was the autocratic devil she had trouble understanding.
And she might as well admit it. She twisted her head to look up at him. "I don't know how I feel about you anymore."
The pain that slashed over his features only confused her further. Was he genuinely hurt by the thought that he'd killed her love? Or was his pride merely bruised because he hadn't been able to step right back into her life as if the past meant nothing?
"At least tell me the truth about Blakeborough," he said hoarsely. "Do you love him?"
"Why does it matter?"
His eyes ate her up. "If you do, I'll keep my distance. I'll stay out of your life from now on."
"You've been doing that easily enough for the past twelve years," she snapped. "I don't see why my feelings for Edwin should change anything."
"Easily? It was never easy, I assure you." His expression was stony. "And you're avoiding the question. Are you in love with Blakeborough?"
How she wishe ~ Sabrina Jeffries

We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die. ~ Muriel Barbery

The temple, in its standing there, first gives to things their look and to men their outlook on themselves. This view remains open as long as the work is a work, as long as the god has not fled from it. It is the same with the sculpture of the god, a votive offering of the victor in the athletic games. It is not a portrait whose purpose is to make it easier to realize how the god looks; rather, it is a work that lets the god himself be present and thus is the god himself. The same holds for the linguistic work. In the tragedy nothing is staged or displayed theatrically, but the battle of the new gods against the old is being fought. The linguistic work, originating in the speech of the people, does not refer to this battle; it transforms the people's saying so that now every living word fights the battle and puts up for decision what is holy and what unholy, what lofty and what flighty, what master and what slave. ~ Martin Heidegger

My heart tells me to stop right here, to offer quiet benediction and call it the end. But the truth won't allow it. Because there is no end, happy or otherwise. Nothing is fixed, nothing solved. the facts, such as they are, finally spin off into the void of things missing, the inconclusiveness of us. Who are we? Where do we go? The ambiguity may be dissatisfying, even irritating, but this is a love story. There is no tidiness. Blame it on the human heart. One way or another, it seems, we all perform vanishing tricks, effacing history, locking up our lives and slipping day by day into the graying shadows. Our whereabouts are uncertain. All secrets lead to the dark, and beyond teh dark there is only maybe. ~ Tim O'Brien

Yousef had been lighthearted during his questions, but there was something very serious and sad under his smile, and Alan knew what it was. It was the knowledge that there would be no fighting, and there would be no struggle, no stand taken, and that the two of them, because they were not lacking materially, because despite injustices in their countries they were the recipients of preposterous bounty, would likely do nothing. They were content, they had won. The fighting would be done by others, elsewhere. ~ Dave Eggers

Now I knew that life and truth were one; that life mere and pure is in itself bliss; that where being is not bliss, it is not life, but life-in-death. Every inspiration of the dark wind that blew where it listed went out a sigh of thanksgiving. At last I was! I lived, and nothing could touch my life! My darling walked beside me, and we were on our way home to see the Father! ~ George MacDonald

He is a slave."
"He is a man, as I am."
Kestrel slipped from her saddle, stood face-to-face with Ronan, and lied. "He is nothing to me."
Ronan's anger dimmed a little. He waited, listening.
"I never should have challenged Irex." Kestrel decided to weave some truth into her story, to toughen the fabric of it. "But he and I have an unfriendly history. He made me an offer last spring. I turned him down. Since then, he has been…aggressive."
She had Ronan's sympathy then, and she was grateful, for she didn't know what she would do if he and Jess turned their backs on her. She needed them--not only today, but always.
"Irex angered me. The slave was just an excuse." How much easier everything would be if that were so. But Kestrel wouldn't let herself consider the truth. She didn't want to know its shape or see its face. "I was thoughtless and rash, but I've drawn my tiles and must play them. Will you help me, Ronan? Will you do as I asked in my letter?"
"Yes." He still looked unhappy. "Though as far as I can see, there is little for me to do but stand and watch you fight."
"And Jess? Will she be at the duel?"
"Yes, as soon as she is done weeping her eyes out. What a fright you've given us, Kestrel."
Kestrel opened a saddlebag and passed Ronan the purse with the death-price. He took it, recognizing it by its weight and the fact that her letter had told him to expect it. Softly, he said, "You frightened me."
She embraced him, step ~ Marie Rutkoski

Their drift away from others produced a selfish privacy and they had lost the refuge and the consolation of a clan. Baptists, Presbyterians, tribe, army, family, some encircling outside thing was needed. Pride, she thought. Pride alone made them think that they needed only themselves, could shape life that way, like Adam and Eve, like gods from nowhere beholden to nothing except their own creations. She should have warned them, but her devotion cautioned against impertinence. As long as Sir was alive it was easy to veil the truth: that they were not a family-not even a like-minded group. They were orphans, each and all. ~ Toni Morrison

Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action into violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. ~ Karen Haber

Lacking strength beauty hates the understanding for asking of her what it cannot do but the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Eighthly, none of our sense-perceptions is opposed to the acceptance of infinity, since we cannot deny infinity merely because we do not sensibly perceive it; but since sense in itself is included in infinity, and since reason doth confirm infinity, therefore needs must that we posit infinity. Moreover, if we consider well, sense doth present to us an infinite universe. For we perceive an endless series of objects, each one contained by another, nor do we ever perceive either with our external or our internal sense, an object which is not contained by another or similar object.

Lastly before our eyes one thing is seen to bound another; air is as a well between the hills, and mountains between tracts of air, land bounds the sea and again sea bounds all lands; yet in truth there is nothing outside to limit the universe ... so far on every side spreads out huge room for things, free from limit in all directions everywhere. [6]

From the testimony of our sight then we should rather infer the infinite, since there is no object which doth not terminate in another, nor can we experience aught which terminateth in itself. ~ Giordano Bruno

Death should teach you that what is real is life. And life teaches you that what is unavoidable is not death, but impermanence. Impermanence is the only truth. Nothing is permanent. All is changing. In every instant. In every moment. Were anything permanent, it could not be. For even the very concept of permanence depends upon impermanence to have any meaning. Therefore, even permanence is impermanent. Look at this deeply. Contemplate this truth. Comprehend it, and you comprehend God. This is the Dharma, and this is the Buddha. This is the Buddha Dharma. This is the teaching and the teacher. This is the lesson and the master. This is the object and the observer, rolled into one. They never have been other than One. It is you who have unrolled them, so that your life may unroll before you. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

Speak truth and you will be attacked by the untruthful. Speak about absolutely nothing, and nothing will speak back, but then nothing will ever change. ~ Suzy Kassem

Among us, on the other hand, 'the righteous man lives by faith.' Now, if you take away positive affirmation, you take away faith, for without positive affirmation nothing is believed. And there are truths about things unseen, and unless they are believed, we cannot attain to the happy life, which is nothing less than life eternal. It is a question whether we ought to argue with those who profess themselves ignorant not only about the eternity yet to come but also about their present existence, for they [the Academics] even argue that they do not know what they cannot help knowing. For no one can 'not know' that he himself is alive. If he is not alive, he cannot 'not know' about it or anything else at all, because either to know or to 'not know' implies a living subject. But, in such a case, by not positively affirming that they are alive, the skeptics ward off the appearance of error in themselves, yet they do not make errors simply by showing themselves alive; one cannot err who is not alive. That we live is therefore not only true, but it is altogether certain as well. And there are many things that are thus true and certain concerning which, if we withhold positive assent, this ought not to be regarded as a higher wisdom but actually a sort of dementia. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

(Ivan) Hold your tongue, or I'll kill you!
(The devil) You'll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends, quivering with eagerness for life! 'There are new men,' you decided last spring, when you were meaning to come here, 'they propose to destroy everything and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they didn't ask my advice! I maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that's how we have to set to work. It's that, that we must begin with. Oh, blind race of men who have no understanding! As soon as men have all of them denied God -- and I believe that period, analogous with geological periods, will come to pass -- the old conception of the universe will fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what's more, the old morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world. Man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man-god will appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitely by his will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven. Everyone will know that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely like a god. His pride will teach him that it's useless for him to repine at life's being a moment, and ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We of Es Toch tell a little myth, which says that in the beginning the Creator told a great lie. For there was nothing at all, but the Creator spoke, saying, It exists. And behold, in order that the lie of God might be God's truth, the universe at once began to exist. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. ~ Edmund Burke

I've had the best time! The spirit here is incredible. It's competitive, to be sure, but everyone supports each other. I was getting advice from men I was about to go against right up to the very moment the competitions began."
"That's wonderful," Joanna said and handed him a mug of lemonade. "You look absolutely awful."
"I showered," he replied, a bit defensively.
"She means the bruises," Kassandra said. She thought "awful" was going too far, for the truth was, he looked magnificent. He was a bit battered, however, as was to be expected. All the competitors were the same.
"These are nothing," he insisted, gesturing to the livid black-and-blue splotches with which he was adorned, and with the enthusiasm of a boy, added, "I won two silver bracelets. Here." He handed one to each of them and beamed as they put them on.
"Thank you," Joanna said sweetly and leaned over to kiss his cheek.
Kassandra stared at the bracelet, turning it round and round her wrist. In her quarters, there were chests fitted with silk-lined drawers that held precious jewels given to her because she was a princess. She wore them on occasion and enjoyed them. But never had she received anything so lovely as that simple silver bracelet won by sweat and skill in the Games.
"It's very nice," she said, and felt his gaze even as she refused to meet it. ~ Josie Litton

T IME'S a circumference

Whereof the segment of our station seems

A long straight line from nothing into naught.

Therefore we say " progress, " " infinity " -

Dull words whose object

Hangs in the air of error and delights

Our boyish minds ahunt for butterflies.

For aspiration studies not the sky

But looks for stars; the victories of faith

Are soldiered none the less with certainties,

And all the multitudinous armies decked

With banners blown ahead and flute before

March not to the desert or th' Elysian fields,

But in the track of some discovery,

The grip and cognizance of something true,

Which won resolves a better distribution

Between the dreaming mind and real truth.

I cannot understand you.

'T is because

You lean over my meaning's edge and feel

A dizziness of the things I have not said. ~ Trumbull Stickney

That was what he wanted to tell his audience at Cambridge. He divided classical satirists into two classes - fierce men starving in garrets, and renouncing popularity and circulation to dwell in tubs, and calm good-livers "who tell amusingly the kind of truth that no one has ever denied." But for the present century the right spirit, he believed, was self-satire, the ability to see humor in the constant small defeats of life, and "the power to be startled by nothing, however extravagant." The subject, in the end, turned out to be more relevant than it had seemed, as anyone could have told who had heard Eddie and Wilfred laughing together. ~ Penelope Fitzgerald

There is nothing so inconvenient in this world as an absolutely truthful person, who can both speak and write, and has the courage of his convictions. One can always arrange matters with liars ... But with the man or woman who holds truth dearer than life, and honor more valuable than advancement, there is nothing to be done, now that governments cannot insist on the hemlock-cure, as in the case of Socrates. ~ Marie Corelli

I never know what to tell them. I mean, there's nothing you can say to make a person stop hurting. Half the time, I just feel like telling them the truth. I'd say that for 3 months, you're going to feel worse than you've ever felt and you cope as best you can. And that after 6 months, the pain isn't so bad, but it still hurts more than you think it will. And even after years, you still find yourself thinking about the person you lost and get sad about it. And you still miss them all the time. ~ Nicholas Sparks

And why can't I have an ignore button like my phone? As I hit it, his calls disappear from the screen and the ringing stops. But the tingles are still at my fingertips, as if he sent them through the phone to grab me. Shoving it in my purse-the pockets on skinny jeans must just be for show 'cause nothing else is fitting in there-I smile at Mark.
Ah, Mark. The blue-eyed, blond-haired, all-American quarterback. Who knew he had a crush on me all these years? Not Emma McIntosh, that's for dang sure. And not Chloe. Which is weird, because Chloe was a collector of this kind of information. Maybe it's not true. Maybe Mark's only interested in me because Galen was-who wouldn't want to date the girl who dated the hottest guy in school? But that's just fine with me. Mark is...well, Mark isn't as fantabulous as I always imagined he would be.
Still, he's good-looking, a star quarterback, and he's not trying to hook me up with his brother. So why am I not excited?
The question must be all over my face because Mark's got his eyebrow raised. Not in a judgmental arch, more like an arch of expectation. If he's waiting for an explanation, his puny human lungs can't hold their breath long enough for an answer.
Aside from not being his business, I can't exactly explain the details of my relationship with Galen-fake or otherwise. The truth is, I don't know where we can go from here. He ripped holes in my pride like buckshot. And did I mention he broke my heart?
He's not ~ Anna Banks

All people are, at heart, egocentric. We exist at the center of our own little universes. We believe that we are living out our lives as best we can, and that we have our own sphere of influence which exists of both friends and enemies. They in turn have their own friends and enemies with whom they interact. That is a given. But we, each of us, tend to put ourselves ahead of others because we believe that we are significant. We must attend to our own needs, desires, wants, and aspirations, because each of us is our own greatest priority. No one else cares for us as much as we do, no one else can exist in our skin. We think we're important. It is where our sense of self-worth comes up, where our egos reside, where "we" are. And we believe that each of our lives means something. ~ Peter David

What I've learned from these long voyages of ours is that, in the end, we all strive for our own good. It does not matter what race we are, who we are… We have that one thing in common – the wish to live this life the best way possible. Hence, our definitions of 'good' and 'bad' always remain subjective – no matter how many perspectives we consider, no matter how objective we try to be, we still judge according to our own beliefs, principles, and opinions – things that we develop throughout our entire life. In truth, nothing is either 'good' or 'bad' but is both good and bad, all at the same time, depending on the perspective and the relation with other matters. This world is much more versatile than we thought it was. The only universal truth is the energy of life and love – the unending circle, and the undying emotion – interconnected for eternity. Life bears love, and love bears life. Hence, I believe that whatever era may come, major concepts shall never change. We should pave our way and live to our content, staying harmonious with ourselves, because in the end, we shall never know what is right and what is wrong. We interrelate just like the tiniest substances – molecules, atoms, etc. – and the biggest substances – planets, galaxies, universes… During these interrelations, there shall be unions as well as collisions, destructions as well as creations… As long as we live, there shall be both oppositions and friendships. There shall be peace, there shall be war, and then ~ Tamuna Tsertsvadze

The truth is, you see, however much they would beg to disagree humans don't actually like to win. Or rather, they like winning for ten seconds, but if they keep on winning, they end up actually having to think about other things, like life and death. The only thing humans like less than winning is losing, but at least something can be done about that. With absolute winning, there is nothing to be done. They just have to deal with it. ~ Matt Haig

However, let us give ourselves to the study of the word, and to prayer; and may the great Teacher make every scriptural truth food to our souls. I desire to grow in knowledge, but I want nothing which bears that name that has not a direct tendency to make sin more hateful, Jesus more precious to my soul; and at the same time to animate me to a diligent use of every appointed means, and an unreserved regard to every branch of duty. ~ John Newton

Where truth goes, I will go, and where truth is I will be, and nothing but death shall divide me and the truth. ~ Thomas Brooks

Think about it. People in the sixteenth century - not to mention in Jesus's time - didn't look like this: perfect skin, perfect hairdos, spotless clothes. These are people who went to the bathroom in the street, for God's sake. There's no way they looked like this. But that's how we're going to remember them. Our alabaster past. When nothing else is left, art will become the truth of the time. Then people will get to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and wonder what happened - how we all became so imperfect. ~ Julia David Levithan

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah ~ Leonard Cohen

All the holy words you read and all the holy words you speak are as nothing if you do not act upon them. Even if you read little and say little but live the right way, forsaking craving, hatred and delusion, you will know the truth and find calmness and will show others the path. ~ Gautama Buddha

I'm serious, Harry, don't go. But Harry only had one thought in his head, which was to get back in front of the mirror, and Ron wasn't going to stop him.
That third night he found his way more quickly than before. He was walking so fast he knew he was making more noise than was wise, but he didn't meet anyone.
And there were his mother and father smiling at him again, and one of his grandfathers nodding happily. Harry sank down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop him from staying here all night with his family. Nothing at all. ~ J.K. Rowling

Stop that Stuart," Patty said as Stuart struggled with the suitcases, which were too heavy for him, she thought. (Almost everything was way too heavy for Stuart.)" Just put those down. Besides," Patty said, "where will you go? You don't have anyplace to go." But Stuart took her hand and held it for a moment against his closed eyes, and despite the many occasions when Patty had wanted him to go, and the several occasions when she had tried to make him go, despite the fact that he was at his most enragingly pathetic, for once she could think of nothing, nothing at all that he could be trying to shame her into or shame her out of, and so it occurred to her that this he would really leave---that he was simply saying good-bye. All along, Patty had been unaware that time is as adhesive as love, and that the more time you spend with someone the greater the likelihood of finding yourself with a permanent sort of thing to deal with that people casually refer to as "friendship," as if that were the end of the matter,when the truth is that even if "your friend" does something annoying, or if you and "your friend" decided that you hate each other, or if "your friend" moves away and you lose each other's address, you still have a friendship, and although it can change shape, look different in different lights, become an embarrassment or an encumbrance or a sorrow, it can't simply cease to have existed, no matter how far into the past it sinks, so attempts to disavow or destroy it will not ~ Deborah Eisenberg