Samuel Johnson Truth Quotations

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

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

To proceed from one truth to another, and connect distant propositions by regular consequences, is the great prerogative of man

It is common for controversists, in the heat of disputation, to add one position to another till they reach the extremities of knowledge, where truth and falsehood lose their distinction

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

In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

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

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

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth.

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

Reason and truth will prevail at last

The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.

Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.

Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt himself by telling what is not true.

Liberty is the parent of truth, but truth and decency are sometimes at variance. All men and all propositions are to be treated here as they deserve, and there are many who have no claim either to respect or decency.

Truth allows no choice.

Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of increase can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more strange. But if a proposition be true, there can be none more true.

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