Rather Be Told The Truth Quotes & Sayings

"I'm going to tell myself that you're just cranky because Chloe's at the mall with Tori, and you weren't allowed to go. I could point out that if you did go, you'd be even crankier, and you'd make everyone miserable. Especially me."
"You wouldn't have to go."
"Sure I would. I'd need to run interference when Tori asked how a new shirt looked and you told her the truth."
"I'm honest. Honest is good."
"Not when it comes to girls and clothes. You need to gauge their reaction first. If they aren't happy with it, you suggest they try something else, even if it looked fine. If they love it and it looks like hell, you say it's not bad and hope they try something else." — Kelley Armstrong

I'll never speak to another person without telling the truth. I've been a cruel man in my time, I've been a devious man in my time, like everybody else. I've told lies in my time. But I've seen enough suffering to experiment with the truth. — Jack Kirby

All writers who can claim to be called 'living' must be political in a sense. They must have what the Quakers call a concern to understand what is happening in the world, and must engage themselves, in their writing, to promote no comfortable lies, of the sort which people will pay well to be told rather than the truth ... — Storm Jameson

The present was always paramount, in a way that thrust you forward: empty, but also free. Whatever stories you told over to yourself and others, you were in truth exposed and naked in the present, a prow cleaving new waters; your past was insubstantial behind, it fell away, it grew into desuetude, its forms grew obsolete. The problem was, you were always still alive, until the end. You had to do something. — Tessa Hadley

Yeah, I'm a drug addict. And a prostitute. The whole world knows. Not because I robbed my own family. Not because I ended up behind bars. Not because I've been hassled by the cops when soliciting customers from a local street corner. Not because I'm shooting up in the public bathrooms at your city park. Everyone knows because I told them all. I never tried to hide any of it. I never felt the need to. — Ashly Lorenzana

Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him ... These things I know, Ubertino; I also have belonged to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth with white-hot iron. Well, let me tell you, the white heat of truth comes from another flame. — Umberto Eco

Truth be told, I didn't want to be on T.V. I was going to be a writer or producer or a director, and at the end of my sophomore year, my department chairman put me up for a job doing weekend weather in Syracuse, New York. — Al Roker

Once in power, Stalin's campaign to succeed Lenin required a legitimate heroic career which he did not possess because of his experience in what he called 'the dirty business' of politics: this could not be told, either because it was too gangsterish for a great, paternalistic statesman or because it was too Georgian for a Russian leader. His solution was a clumsy but all-embracing cult of personality that invented, distorted and concealed the truth. Ironically this self-promotion was so grotesque that it fanned sparks, sometimes innocent ones, which flared up into colossal anti-Stalin conspiracy-theories. It was easy for his political opponents, and later for us historians, to believe that it was all invented and that he had done nothing much at all - particularly since few historians had researched in the Caucasus where so much of his early career took place. An anti-cult, as erroneous as the cult itself, grew up around these conspiracy-theories. — Simon Sebag Montefiore

I believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than believe, to inquire rather than to affirm. — Septima Poinsette Clark

Love, he told himself, was open to interpretation like any other abstract indulgence but followed the same principles everywhere, irrespective of everything else. One, either won or lost in love, there was no bridge in between, and he decided he had lost, lost to himself, if not to her. — Faraaz Kazi

His story told of the king's daughter Cassandra, who foresaw what would happen and tried to prevent the Trojans from letting the great horse into the city, but no one would listen to her: it was a curse laid on her, to see the truth and say it and not be heard. It is a curse laid on women more often than on men. Men want the truth to be theirs, their discovery and property. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The Truth must be told at all costs, no matter how unpopular it may be. The authentic spiritual leader, having freed himself of his own false need to be popular, tells the Truth whether it falls on fertile or stony ground. Such a teacher is the salt of the earth, though few know it. If you think the world is delirious as is, you would find it intolerable without his healing influence. — Vernon Howard

Who is Jesus to me? Jesus is the Word made Flesh. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Jesus is the Victim offered for our sins on the cross. Jesus is the sacrifice offered at holy Mass for the sins of the world and for mine. Jesus is the Word - to be spoken. Jesus is the Truth - to be told. Jesus is the Way - to be walked. Jesus is the Light - to be lit. Jesus is the Life - to be lived. Jesus is the Love - to be loved — Mother Teresa

Either Christ is a liar or war is never necessary, and very properly assuming that Christ told the truth, it follows that the State is without [in the words of Father Macksey] 'judicial authority to determine when war is necessary,' because it is never necessary. — Ben Salmon

Why would you believe such things?" he asks. "What good does it do you?" "The world we see with our eyes is not the whole truth. Dreams and visions are just as real as matter. What we can imagine or think exists as truly as anything we can touch or smell. Where do our thoughts come from, if not from God?" "They come from our experience," Sumner says, "from what we've heard and seen and read, and what's been told to us." Otto shakes his head. "If that were true, then no growth or advancement would be possible. The world would be stagnant and unmoving. We would be doomed — Ian McGuire

[...] if truth be told, evolution hasn't yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.
[review of The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life, Nature 442, 983-984 (31 August 2006)] — Jerry A. Coyne

I told people I was taking a gap year, but the truth was that I wanted to do nothing, absolutely nothing, for as long as possible, maybe for the rest of my life. — Tana French

A prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel, but only when he wishes and not when others wish; he ought rather to discourage every one from offering advice unless he asks it; but, however, he ought to be a constant inquirer, and afterwards a patient listener concerning the things of which he inquired; also, on learning that any one, on any consideration, has not told him the truth, he should let his anger be felt. — Niccolo Machiavelli

In a free society, there comes a time when the truth - however hard it may be to hear, however impolitic it may seem to say - must be told. — Al Gore

The truth shouldn't be told only when it's convenient. Honesty must be a way of life. — Frank Sonnenberg

Burning cocaine is the worst smell in the world. It smells like burning plastic and rat poison combined. A friend of mine once told me, that when you want to know something about anything, put some fire under it. The fire brings out everything. You want to know something about a motherfucker? Put some fire under his ass. Well, when you put some fire under that cocaine, you know what it's made out of. — Mike Tyson

Indeed, if these final decades of the millennium have taught us anything, it must be that oral tradition never was the 'other' we accused it of being; it never was the primitive, preliminary technology of communication we thought it had to be. Rather, if the whole truth is told, oral tradition stands out as the single most dominant communicative technology of our species, as both a historical fact and, in many areas still, a contemporary reality. The miracle of the flat inscribable surface and Gutenberg's genius aside, even the electronic revolution cannot challenge the long-term preeminence of the oral tradition. ("Introduction" by John Foley) — E. Anne Mackay

How does she do it? She makes it sound like she is so cut up to be giving them this information, and it's all just bumph out of her head. She never told them ANYTHING. I don't think she's given them the right name of any airfield in Britain except Mainsend and Buscot, which of course were where she was stationed. They could have easily checked. It's all so close to truth, and so glib
her aircraft identification is rather good considering what a fuss she makes about it. It makes me think of the first day I met her, giving those directions in German. So cool and crisp, such authority
suddenly she really was a radio operator, a German radio operator, she was so good at faking it. Or when I told her to be Jamie, how she just suddenly turned into Jamie.
This confession of hers is rotten with error ... — Elizabeth Wein

All right, Pendel had lied to him, if lying was the word. He had told Osnard what he wanted to hear and gone to extraordinary lengths to obtain it for him, including making it up. Some people lied because lying gave them a kick, made them feel braver or cleverer than all the lowly conformists who went on their bellies and told the truth. Not Pendel. Pendel lied to conform. To say the right things at all times, even if the right things were in one place, and the truth was in another. — John Le Carre

I didn't want to accept failure. Even though sometimes the strength it takes to admit failure is probably worth as much as the determination not to quit. So there you have, I was stuck fighting for a relationship with a boyfriend who, in truth be told, I'd rather forget ever existed. — Caprice Crane

Jesus beckons me to follow him to that place of weakness where I risk the vulnerability of a child so that I might know how strong my Father is and how much he loves me. But truth be told, I would rather be an adult. I'd rather be in a place where I can still pull things together if God doesn't show up, where I risk no ultimate humiliation, where I don't have to take the shallow breaths of desperation. And as a result, my experience of my heavenly Father is simply impoverished. — Gary Haugen

Its very important to me to be respected by true talented artists and great minds than by the masses who need to be told how to think. Its more important for me to do things that are spiritually rewarding because that wealth is what makes me feel alive. I do not touch projects that do not yield personal fulfillment, or put me in a field with talent that is over-measured. You wont find me where there is no Truth. And Im not one to jump on any bandwagons or join a gold rush without a purpose. Id rather create my own projects and grow my own fields. — Suzy Kassem

Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself. — Erin Morgenstern

We're always pitching ideas and being told "no thank you." No offense taken, because I would so much rather be told the truth that they're not interested and be able to find the right show for that network down the line. — J.J. Abrams

Before I could reply, he had picked me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. And afterwards, when I tried to speak, he silenced me in much the same manner. It was a shock (but not at all distasteful) to be so caught up. Later - when he at last set me down - he handled me more gently. He took of my glasses and told me that he loved me. — Jennifer Paynter

As I said, history is written by the victors. The truth is, the villains were less villainous, and the heroes less heroic, than you've been told. — Cinda Williams Chima

To call ourselves a Microcosme, or little world, I thought it onely a pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neare judgement and second thoughts told me there was a reall truth therein: for first wee are a rude masse, and in the ranke of creatures, which only are, and have a dull kinde of being not yet priviledged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existence, which comprehend the creatures not onely of world, but of the Universe. — Thomas Browne

I just told the whole truth and that felt really incredible and really scary. — Emma Stone

I can say it, but it doesn't seem convincing to most people. I can call it an 'injustice,' but that doesn't always sink in either. You have to understand the nature of the culture in New York. Words that are equal to the pain of the poor are pretty easily discredited. A quarter of the truth, stated with lots of indirection, is regarded as more seemly.

Even when people do accept the idea of 'injustice,' there are ways to live with it without it causing you to change a great deal in your life. A mildly embarrassed toleration of injustice is an elemental part of cultural sophistication here. the stile is, 'Oh yes. We know all that. So tell us something new.' There's a kind of cultivated weariness in this. Talking about injustice, I am told, is 'tiresome' unless you do it in a way that sounds amusing. — Jonathan Kozol

He knew he lived in hell. He accepted it. He rarely complained. But truth be told, he desperately wished he could make his escape. His prayers went unanswered, and his plans for reform were almost always thwarted by something or other. — Sylvain Reynard

The truth will always be the truth, no matter how it's told. — Khali Raymond

My grandfather told me all the world's problems come from us thinking we own pieces of the Earth, but we're pieces of her. Wilfrid — Eleni Papanou

The universe lies to our senses and they lie to us, and how can we ourselves be anything but liars? For myself, I trust neither message nor messenger; neither what I am told, nor what I see. There may be truth somewhere, but it never gets down to me — Peter S. Beagle

She told me, "I sexualize men. You can't just be afraid of men that sexualize women when I do practically the same thing, and I'm a woman." I told Lily the honest fucking truth. "You can't physically overpower a fucking man the way that a man can overpower you." It doesn't matter who's thinking about sex. We all are. It matters who's in a position of dominance. Who has the chance to abuse that - and it's mostly men. Bad fucking men. — Krista Ritchie

He knew she had been telling the truth when she told him she seldom asked for help. It was clear in her every interaction with him - in her speech , even in the way she held herself- that she was used to standing alone. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

Kell had told his brother about the deals he struck in Grey London, and in White, and even on occasion in Red, about the various things he'd smuggled, and Rhy had stared at him, and listened, and when he spoke, it wasn't to lecture Kell on all the ways it was wrong, or illegal. It was to ask why.
"I don't know," said Kell, and it had been the truth.
Rhy had sat up, eyes bleary from drink. "Have we not provided?" he'd asked, visibly upset. "Is there anything you want for?"
"No," Kell had answered, and that had been a truth and a lie at the same time.
"Are you not loved?" whispered Rhy. "Are you not welcomed as family?"
"But I'm not family, Rhy," Kell had said. "I'm not truly a Maresh, for all that the king and queen have offered me that name. I feel more like a possession than a prince."
At that, Rhy had punched him in the face.
For a week after, Kell had two black eyes instead of one, and he'd never spoken like that again, but the damage was done. — Victoria Schwab

Cervantes told me history is the mother of truth.
Borges told me historical truth is not what took place; it is what we think took place.
So Billy Shakespeare was queer.
Ronnie was the greatest president in history, right up there on Mount Rushmore.
AIDS is mankind's greatest plague.
Israel only kills terrorists.
America never bombed Lebanon.
Jesus was straight. Juda and he were just friends.
Roseanne's parents molested her as an infant.
Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat deserved their Nobels.
And Gaetan Dugas started the AIDS epidemic. — Rabih Alameddine

I wish someone had told me this simple but confusing truth: Even when everything's going your way you can still be sad. Or anxious. Or uncomfortably numb. Because you can't always control your brain or your emotions even when things are perfect. — Jenny Lawson

That's not what I meant! What happened?"
He shrugged. "I told the truth."
"Adrian!"
"I'm serious. She asked me what my greatest strength was. I said getting along with people."
"That not bad," I admitted.
"Then she asked me what my greatest weakness was. And I said, 'Where should I start.'"
"Adrian! — Richelle Mead

There is a kind of truth in a well-told lie. When we look back, we don't see things as they were but how we would like them to have been. — Chloe Thurlow

The thing that most haunted me that day, however ... was the fact that these things had - apparently - actually occurred ... For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth - really seen it - you can't look away. — Elizabeth Kostova

"You ought to be ashamed," a woman in an Easter bonnet told Stein. "Your race gave us our religion ... " "From ancient polytheism, the belief in lots of gods," the woman continued a little more eruditely, "the Hebrew nation led us on to the idea that there is only one." "Which is just a step from the truth," said Stein. — Peter De Vries

I'm more pompous and self-assured and determined that if - you know - if the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed. — Marcus Brigstocke