Quotes & Sayings About Being Truthful

Here's an easy way to see if a war movie is being truthful: If you see an explosion on a faraway hillside and the sound of the explosion and the detonation of the bomb happen at the same time - if they're putting the sound and the vision together in the same moment - they're going toward our cultural understanding of war, not the reality of war. — Sebastian Junger

Now you say you have to absolutely truthful. Sincerity is the main thing, and truthfulness is the main thing and don't lie to anybody ... and you'll get ahead. Brother you sure will. You'll get ahead right on that cycle of action, right toward zero! It's a trap not being able to prevaricate ... This makes life more colorful! — L. Ron Hubbard

I have people that are affected by what I do, what I say, and that would be the one place where it gets complicated. But being honest and truthful - I just believe that's the best way to be. — Gwen Stefani

There is nothing to fear from truth ... Being truthful is essential to being an independent thinker and obtaining greater understanding of what is right. — Ray Dalio

There is a sense in which we have - like, I go in to teach a class; I may be somewhat different than I would be talking to you, although it's related because it's public. I'm very different with my roommate or my lover or my cats. But I don't know if that means you're acting, really, if you're being truthful. — Mary Gaitskill

Honesty in art inspires and moves me. I am passionate about creating truthful experiences as much as I love being the spectator to a brilliant body of work. — Crystal Reed

I think distance also helps me gain an certain critical perspective that's essential for good writing. It makes it possible to be more truthful in my writing, to speak some harsh truths. And being an immigrant in America, always having this outsider-rinsider thing going on, is such great training for being a writer. Because that's what writers are - outsiders wanting to get on the inside and insiders longing to burst out. — Thrity Umrigar

And if I am really being truthful, I sometimes wish Phillip would kiss me. — Jillian Dodd

The umbrella that I live under is that you must be truthful with everyone except when to do so would injure them or others. — Rob Lowe

It takes extraordinary mental discipline to transmit human experience without perversion. Truth telling is unnatural. Lying is an important aspect of humanity. We lie to other people to prevent hurt feelings and we deceive ourselves in order to protect our noble sense of being a good person. Dishonesty and inaccuracy preserves our quest seeking uninterrupted personal pleasure. I shall eschew pleasure seeking and cultivate precision of mind and moral character that precious truth telling necessitates. Reading and writing, along with observing nature and studious reflection on vivid personal experiences is the process methodology that will bring me closest to discovering inviolate verity of existence and becoming a doyen for all the immaculate truth, beauty, and goodness in this world. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Because I finally can," Sebastian said. "You've no idea what it's been like, being around the lot of you these past few days, having to pretend I could stand you. That the sight of you didn't make me sick. You," he said to Jace, "every second you're not panting after your own sister, you're whining on and on about how your daddy didn't love you. Well, who could blame him? And you, you stupid bitch" - he turned to Clary - "giving that priceless book away to a half-breed warlock; have you got a single brain cell in that tiny head of yours? — Cassandra Clare

After you read the script, then you actually just have to be in the moment you're in, in order to make it believable. You can't give it away. You can't tip it off. For me, it's always about being truthful in the moment I'm in. Hopefully, being able to reveal what I'm feeling, you have to believe it. — Victor Garber

Loyalty consists of many things, including being truthful with our friends. When you really disagree, you have to say so. — Peggy Noonan

I'm not being nice, I'm being truthful, — Lili Valente

Without the burdens and problems associated with fame and fortune, Lieh-tzu could live leisurely and be free to do what he liked and go where he wanted. To Lieh-tzu, being an unknown citizen was better than being a person of power and responsibility. In a time when politicians played games of intrigue, Lieh-tzu felt it was better to remain silent and be truthful to oneself. — Eva Wong

I've been hounded by a reputation of being difficult when really what I'm being is truthful and honest. And I think that's been a thorn in my side. — Gabrielle Anwar

What I believe in is being transparent and truthful and always trying to get the facts right. People will make their own judgment of whether or not they want to trust you based on how transparent you are with them and the principles that you bring to the game. — Jeremy Scahill

We all have cracks and tears and shattered glass within our souls. Some have more than others. We do not wish to seek one who has none; but we wish to find the one who can say "look at me, look at this." We wish to find the one who sees every bit of broken glass and who will put those pieces into the palms of our hands and say "please keep them." And we wish to be that kind of person, too. This is how it should be. — C. JoyBell C.

I think it's unnecessary to be mean for the sake of being mean, but I do believe you have to be truthful, but with love. — Geri Halliwell

Being a real friend meant being truthful, and I wanted to stand by that principle, no matter what it cost me — Frank Cascio

That's always important to us, is being truthful. Not guessing, not making any assumptions. Just coming at it with knowledge. — Simon Pegg

Practically every mental health care practitioner, from the most erudite psychoanalysts to untrained self-help gurus, tell us that it is infinitely more fulfilling and we are all saner if we tell the truth, yet most of us are not rushing to stand up and be counted among the truth tellers. Indeed, as someone committed to being honest in daily life I experience the constant drag of being seen as a 'freak,' for telling the truth, even when I speak truthfully about simple matters. If a friend gives me a gift and asks me to tell him or her whether I like it, I will respond honestly and judiciously; that is to say I will speak the truth in a positive, caring manner. Yet even in this situation, the person who asks for honesty will often express annoyance when given a truthful response. — Bell Hooks

Being alone," I snapped, without meaning to be intentionally rude. I was simply being truthful. "Being alone," she said, nodding. I could see that she was not put off by my bristling reply. "There's a lot to be said for being alone. But you and I know, don't we, Flavia, that being alone and being lonely are not at all the same thing?" I brightened a bit. Here was someone who seemed at least to have thought through some of the same things I had. — Alan Bradley

Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. — Margery Williams

What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophesy or as poesy ... should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open up new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth. — Margaret Fuller

If a woman truly loves you, you can't always expect her to tell the truth. You see, women are more attuned to feelings than men are, and if they're not being truthful, more often than not it's because they think the truth might hurt your feelings. But that doesn't mean they don't love you.
If they do lie, it's because they care. — Nicholas Sparks

Its funny because when I did feel like I came out and I just felt like I was being truthful to myself, (it was at) that point I became very successful. So you know, it took a true kind of facing that truth of myself and being honest, that was when the real kind of fame or whatever that kind of stuff happened for me. — Margaret Cho

My head don't work any more and it's hard for me to understand how anybody could care if he lived or died or was dying or cared about anything but whether or not there was liquor left in the bottle and so I said what I said without thinking. In some ways I'm no better than the others, in some ways worse because I'm less alive. Maybe it's being alive that makes them lie, and being almost not alive that makes me sort of accidentally truthful
I don't know but
anyway
we've been friends ... And being friends is telling each other the truth ... — Tennessee Williams

In order for comedy to be funny you have to play the truth of the moment. But if you're not being completely truthful to the basis of the character, its not going to be funny. — Stephen Root

SIR! SIR! SIR! FORGET THAT 'SIR' STUFF, WILL YOU? I'll bet if that were the president or governor or mayor or some rich son of a bitch, there would be doctors all over that room doing something! Why do you just let them die? What's the sin in being poor? — Charles Bukowski

The vanity of intelligence is that the intelligent man is often more committed to 'one-upping' his opponent than being truthful. When the idea of intelligence, rather than intelligence itself, becomes a staple, there is no wisdom in it. — Criss Jami

I knew that this was something that was going to be an intense experience, just from the way I typically approach my work. I did not take the fact that I was going to portray a soldier lightly. It was so very important to me that I came across as believable and honest and truthful. I wanted to be able to convey the psychology behind the choice of leaving home for an extended period of time, knowing that you may never come back while still being a devoted parent. — Michelle Monaghan

I have found over the years of working with people, even those who have had very deep and profound awakenings, that most people have a fear of being truthful, of really being honest
not only with others, but with themselves as well. Of course, the core of this fear is that most people know intuitively that if they were actually truthful and totally sincere and honest, they would no longer be able to control anybody. — Adyashanti

Plato said that poets should be excluded from the ideal republic because they are such liars. I am a poet, and I affirm that this is true. About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives; I know one of them who has floated at least five versions of his autobiography, none of them true. I of course - being also a novelist - am a much more truthful person than that. But since poets lie, how can you believe me? — Margaret Atwood

People hear that and say I'm being modest, but I am not a modest person, but I have to be truthful about what I'm doing and what I'm doing is channeling. — Morgan Freeman

I think what saved me is me being honest. I think I somewhow had the courage to do something and say something that I knew would possibly end my career. Instead of making business more important I made my soul and my life more important. And I think by being truthful, and being honest, that saved me. — Ellen DeGeneres

I think the success of my work stems from being truthful. — Catherine O'Hara

I always try to honor a character by being honest and truthful to who they are, in spite of my own personality and beliefs. — Jasmine Guy

We live in a media soup and are constantly being programmed or are fighting that programming. Thus any truthful account of a life, every part of a life, is about society as well as an individual. — Marge Piercy

I presumed the president was being truthful until a series of events undercut that confidence. — Bob Graham

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself. — Alain De Botton

I really think more about being honest and truthful about feelings and how people behave for the movies that I direct, but I also love movies like Zohan and Anchorman, just balls to the wall, how much can you make people laugh in one 90 minute period. — Judd Apatow

Fleetwood Mac has been pretty truthful. Open about what we do. We've always done it from the inside out. Versus being pressured from the outside and changing the inside. And that's our story. — Mick Fleetwood

Eye contact made people think you were being truthful even if you weren't. — Gabrielle Zevin

We all compromise ourselves, from time to time, because maybe it will lead to more opportunity ... A ll of that's cool, but we forget and we get caught up. If you want that nurturing, caring, empathetic, compassionate heart to keep on ticking and be around, and you want it to be strong, then don't neglect #1. One way to feed it is just being truthful and listening to your heart. — Paul Walker

Acting is all about being truthful. I'm really bad at lying. I'm one of the worst liars I know. — Dane DeHaan

I am not so concerned with how many Rotten Tomatoes we have - although the good reviews are to be wished for, of course - but I have my hands full in the daily housekeeping of doing Maura right and being truthful to this experience. — Jeffrey Tambor

I'm a huge fan of Jack Lemmon, he was someone who managed to tread that line between comedy and tragedy and sometimes give very big performances, but they were never over-demonstrative and they were never not based on a kind of real truthful human being. — Steve Coogan

We live in a relativistic culture, where people are more con- cerned with being liked than being truthful. In A Sweet and Bitter Providence, John Piper does an outstanding job of bibli- cally defending key truths that the church often ignores. He gives us an example of how to take a bold and educated stand on issues of race, purity, and God's sovereignty. — Francis Chan

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

What's great is that the picture is already taken before it goes public. It's in secret. The trust that develops from such a habit engenders risk, and you realize you're not as vulnerable as you thought. Once you become comfortable with being more truthful about who you are, the easier it is, the prouder you become. That's the way it unfolded for us. — Emmet Gowin

If you lack vulnerability then you are not being truthful to yourself. — Benjamin Stone

Your motto: Be Bold, Be Free, Be Truthful. — Brenda Ueland

Being truthful is a necessity because when I'm not being truthful it takes a toll on me. I don't have any room for it in my life. I don't have an across-the-board opinion on honesty in relationships. But for me, personally, it's paramount. — Dax Shepard

I wasn't good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I'd worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don't find very funny, or do things they don't particularly want to, with people whose company they don't particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I'd fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high. — Gail Honeyman

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that. — Martin McDonagh

Acting's not about nose jobs and liposuction. It's about being truthful to what you're doing. — Phylicia Rashad

There is no truth in photography. One can't reproduce an absolute truth. That said, I don't see [my photographs] as being any less truthful than any other photographs. — Taryn Simon

Develop the wise art of being radically truthful and remaining considerate, thoughtful, and safe. — Claude Steiner

Photography is the truth if it's being handled by a truthful person. — Don McCullin

The most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I'm talking to a group and I'm saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I'm just being glib or clever. — Barack Obama

Organized religion, being founded on superstition, is, perforce, not scientific. And all that which is not scientific - that is, truthful - must be bolstered up by force, fear and falsehood. Thus we always find slavery and organized religion going hand in hand. — Elbert Hubbard

I could now (possibly) go back and restretch those shrunken hours, flake the images separate, arrange them in accurate chronological order, (possibly; with will-power, patience, and the proper chemicals) but being accurate is not necessarily being honest ... Nor is chronological reporting by any means always the most truthful (each camera has its own veracity) especially when, in all good faith, one cannot truthfully claim to remember what happened accurately ... — Ken Kesey

Humility is all about being truthful and honest. — Radhanath Swami

When someone is nasty or treats you poorly, don't take it personally. It says nothing about you, but a lot about them. — Michael Josephson

The way to my heart is by being truthful and spontaneous. — Michelle Trachtenberg

I think there are a lot of people who are afraid to be who they are, and if I have to sacrifice a little bit of fame and a little bit of success because I'm being 100 percent truthful with who I am, hopefully that will create a paved way for someone else. — Todrick Hall

To be credible we must be truthful. — Edward R. Murrow

Singing and being truthful to a song ... I've developed that skill, and I know how to do that real instinctively, that's all I've been doing for the last 25 years. — Taylor Dane

The projected cognitive load of potential problem solutions should determine whether one pursues a discourse path that ends up being truthful or deceptive. — Anonymous

Being desirable means being comfortable with your own ambiguity. The most ambiguous reality is that we are flesh and spirit at the same time. Within everyone there is light and shadow, good and evil, love and hate. In order to be truthful, you must embrace your total being. A person who exhibits both positive and negative qualities, strengths and weaknesses is not flawed, but complete. — Rumi

Any attempt to ease guilt by justification is false. That the crimes of another appease none of one's own offenses. That, if one is being truthful, the greater pain is that of the offender. I know now that I would much rather be a victim of violence than a perpetrator — Frank Delaney

My letters seeking a job, though truthful, diminished the full truth. Face would blanch if the facts had been complete: "Dear Sir," I thought. "Do you have a position for a journeyman burglar, con man, forger and car thief; also with experience as armed robber, pimp, card cheat and several other things. I smoked marijuana at twelve (in the 40's) and shot heroin at sixteen. I have no experience with LSD and methedrine. They came to popularity since my imprisonment. I've buggered pretty young boys and feminine homosexuals (but only when locked up away from women). In the idiom of jails, prisons and gutters (some plush gutters) I'm a motherfucker! Not literally, for I don't remember my mother. In my world the term, used as I used it, is a boast of being hell on wheels, outrageously unpredictable, a virtuoso of crime. Of course by being a motherfucker in that world I'm a piece of garbage in yours. Do you have a job? — Edward Bunker

I like the way we talk to each other. It feels honest. It was different with Manuel. One of us always had to win. Husbands and wives do that, worry more about being right than being truthful. — Richard Lange

Compassion is the basis of all truthful relationship: it means being present with love-for ourselves and for all life, including animals, fish, birds, and trees. Compassion is bringing our deepest truth into our actions, no matter how much the world seems to resist, because that is ultimately what we have to give this world and one another. — Ram Dass

Integrity is fundamental to being men. Integrity means being truthful, but it also means accepting responsibility and honoring commitments and covenants. — D. Todd Christofferson

I was never a pretty girl, so I wasn't the one to get the boy. I used to cast myself as a good sport. Sometimes I wonder if I do that too much with roles I play, because if I'm absolutely truthful, I quite like being the best friend, or the supporting role, and actually I ought to gear-change and make myself the leading role. — Celia Imrie

Jazz is so difficult. A lot of people think once they've learned these licks they can get up and play them for the rest of their life. But that's not being truthful to the music 'cause it's not developing. Cats you hear that don't make no mistakes? They ain't trying to do nothing. everything they hear is on the mark, but they've played it so many times ... I've built a whole career out of making mistakes! — Lester Bowie

The History of Truth

In that ago when being was believing,
Truth was the most of many credibles,
More first, more always, than a bat-winged lion,
A fish-tailed dog or eagle-headed fish,
The least like mortals, doubted by their deaths.

Truth was their model as they strove to build
A world of lasting objects to believe in,
Without believing earthenware and legend,
Archway and song, were truthful or untruthful:
The Truth was there already to be true.

This while when, practical like paper-dishes,
Truth is convertible to kilowatts,
Our last to do by is an anti-model,
Some untruth anyone can give the lie to,
A nothing no one need believe is there. — W. H. Auden

Besides, is it really a lie when the person you're telling it to knows you aren't being truthful in the first place? — Paige Shelton

Where body language conflicts with the words that are being said, the body language will usually be the more 'truthful' in the sense of revealing true feelings. — Glen Wilson

Religion and anger has gone together a lot, historically. My father, being very religious and angry, was trying to reconcile the ideas of love and forgiveness with damage in his own heart. We historically create God in the image of someone who will redeem us, or someone who has damaged us. A lot of my imaginations of God was a projection of my own damage because of my father. God is good but he has a lot of expectations, of which I have failed
just like my dad. But I don't think it's truthful to create God as a projection of either our damage or our altruism. — William P. Young

There's a fine line between being truthful and being a complete jerk, I respond and with that I turn my back to the fire. I mutter an obligatory 'goodnight' before falling into sleep. — Celia Mcmahon

God's religion is love and the light of love sees no walls. Anybody who unconditionally loves another human being for the goodness of their heart and nothing more is already on the right side of God. True honor is being truthful, humble, selfless and compassionate towards all living creatures. Those filled with discrimination, prejudice, hatred, egotism, and pride stand the furthest away from God. — Suzy Kassem

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? — Milan Kundera

Being truthful is the new beautiful — Suzy Kassem

Drosophila," I said, remembering the word.
"What?" Lily asked.
"Why do girls always fall for guys with the at ention span of drosophila?"
"What?"
"Fruit flies. Guys with the attention span of fruit flies."
"Because they're hot?"
"This," I told her, "is not the time for being truthful. — Rachel Cohn

Women are more attuned to feelings than men are, and if they're not being truthful, more often than not it's because they think truth might hurt your feelings. But it doesn't mean they don't love you. — Nicholas Sparks

the form of deception being produced is a BFL, the truthful information one possesses is contextually unproblematic, the truthful information is easily accessible within memory (i.e., involves data that recently were uploaded to working memory), and any false information that might be used to construct the BFL must be retrieved from long-term memory. — Anonymous

A process for discernment: God is my ultimate source of truth and wisdom, and dwells forever at the center of my being. Therefore, any thought, emotion, or action that takes me further from my center can be neither truthful, nor wise. — Bill Crawford

He licked his lips, still looking earnest. "Sara. We had such a special connection. It was real and it was fantastic. Maybe that's why I've spent so many years yearning for it too. We both knew what it was like, and we lost it. Even though you may not remember yet, it's somewhere in here." He reached over and touched my head. "And in there." He pointed a finger toward my heart.
I was speechless. I stared at Jack, knowing in my heart that he was being honest and truthful. And I was overwhelmed that he understood me so well.
Turning to face me, his eyes burned with intensity. He took my hands in his and said, "I love you Sara Jordan Hamilton, and I'm willing to give you all the desires of your heart, if only you'll let me. Nothing can take away my love for you. Not time, not distance, not even another husband. — Sharon Ricklin Jones

I recently heard a talk about identity in which the speaker said it's almost as though we are born into a world in which we are constantly being labeled by others
our parents, our friends, our family, and people we don't even know. Each person, from the outside looking in, comes up with a label to slap onto us without our permission. Some labels are kind and some are truthful, but many of them are lies. And sometimes we leave the negative labels on so long that we believe what they say; we allow those labels to define us. — Debra Fileta

I feel like I need just to keep trying to make the work for the right reasons. I think part of that is working with really good people, and just trying to make strong truthful work. And not being diverted from that. — Cate Shortland

Being honest to the people around you is the best thing you ever do to them,but expecting the same from them is the worst thing you ever do to yourself — Anonymous

Jesus being the embodiment of the Truth thus makes everything He says 'essential' and Eternally valid".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] — R. Alan Woods

I only believe in telling the truth and being truthful. — Vinnie Tortorich

Everything is out of your control, and you can only be truthful about how you feel. — Shailene Woodley

So I learned that the people who make the most of the process of encountering reality, especially the painful obstacles, learn the most and get what they want faster than people who do not ... In short, I learned that being totally truthful, especially about mistakes and weaknesses, led to a rapid rate of improvement and movement toward what I wanted. — Ray Dalio

I think the biggest thing is just making sure that you do the work that you connect with, personally, and that you do work where you can really bring something to the table. It's just about being truthful to yourself. — Susanna White

Good character is that quality which makes one dependable whether being watched or not, which makes one truthful when it is to one's advantage to be a little less than truthful, which makes one courageous when faced with great obstacles and which endows one with the firmness of' wise self-discipline. — Arthur S. Adams