Quotes & Sayings About True Statements

Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.'
That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack. — Patrick O'Brian

[I]t is no doubt true that our image of what a messiah might look like may keep us from recognizing the real thing when it stands before us. Could it be that we have embellished the long-awaited event with so many aggadic flourishes that we can no longer recognize the reality when it happens? Could our overly literal reading of our sages' poetic descriptions have led us to overlook completely the miracle as it happened?
One of the dangers of taking the statements and speculations of our sages as literal truth - when they were not meant as such - is the distortion of our expectations. — Nathan Lopes Cardozo

Knowledge [savoir] in general cannot be reduced to science, nor even to learning [connaissance]. Learning is the set of statements which, to the exclusion of all other statements, denote or describe objects and may be declared true or false. Science is a subset of learning. It is also composed of denotative statements, but imposes two supplementary conditions on their acceptability: the objects to which they refer must be available for repeated access, in other words, they must be accessible in explicit conditions of observation; and it must be possible to decide whether or not a given statement pertains to the language judged relevant by the experts. — Jean-Francois Lyotard

Lies of omission do not exist. The concept is a very human one. It is the product of your story writing again. You have written a story about the truth, making emotional demands of it, and in particular, of those in possession of it. Your demands are based on a feeling of entitlement to the facts, which is very childish. You can never know all of the facts. Only I can. And since it's impossible for me to reveal all facts to you, it is my discretion alone that decides which facts will be revealed in the finite time we have. If I do not volunteer information you deem critical to your fate, it possibly means that I am a scoundrel, but it does not mean that I am a liar. And it certainly means you did not ask the right questions.
One can make either true statements or false statements about reality. All of the statements I make are true. — Scratch

You were never really my father, he might say, or You were the only father I ever knew. Both statements were equally true, no matter how contradictory. When — Cassandra Clare

The most conventional statements are both true and welcome. — Judith Martin

But prior to about the year 1600, the verb "believe" had a very different meaning within Christianity as well as in popular usage. It did not mean believing statements to be true; the object of the verb "believe" was always a person, not a statement. This is the difference between believing that and believing in. To believe in a person is quite different from believing that a series of statements about the person are true. In premodern English, believing meant believing in and thus a relationship of trust, loyalty, and love. Most simply, to believe meant to belove.11 — Marcus J. Borg

Children are nowhere taught, in any systematic way, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, statements. Why is this so? Because their elders, even in the democratic countries, do not want them to be given this kind of education. — Aldous Huxley

One of the greatest crimes committed by this present Christian generation is its neglect of the gospel, and it is from this neglect that all our other maladies spring forth. The lost world is not so much gospel hardened as it is gospel ignorant because many of those who proclaim the gospel are also ignorant of its most basic truths. The essential themes that make up the very core of the gospel - the justice of God, the radical depravity of man, the blood atonement, the nature of true conversion, and the biblical basis of assurance - are absent from too many pulpits. Churches reduce the gospel message to a few creedal statements, teach that conversion is a mere human decision, and pronounce assurance of salvation over anyone who prays the sinner's prayer. — Paul David Washer

The puzzle that besets me is best expressed by the following statements. a: None of what follows ever happened b: All of what follows is entirely true — Stephen Fry

What is a false statement today may be a true one tomorrow. — Marty Rubin

But does the danger really lie in the lack of universality? Doesn't it rather lurk in the pretense of totality? What is dangerous is the attempt of a man who is an expert, say, in the field of biology, to understand and explain human beings exclusively in terms of biology. The same is true of psychology and sociology as well. At the moment at which totality is claimed, biology becomes biologism, psychology becomes psychologism, and sociology becomes sociologism. In other words, at that moment science is turned into ideology. What we have to deplore, I would say, is not that scientists are specializing, but that the specialists are generalizing. We are familiar with that type called terrible simplificateurs. Now we become acquainted with a type I would like to call terrible generalisateurs. I mean those who cannot resist the temptation to make overgeneralized statements on the grounds of limited findings. — Viktor E. Frankl

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness. — Hannah Arendt

The Bible is a statement, not of theories, but of actual facts ... things are not true because they are in the Bible, but they are only in the Bible because they are true. — Hannah Whitall Smith

Fruitful discourse in science or theology requires us to believe that within the contexts of normal discourse there are some true statements. — Kenneth L. Pike

I got a feeling your statements are true but all they add up to is one big lie. — Vincent Gardenia

Every word that [Jesus] spoke was historically true. Every word that He spoke was scientifically true. Every word that He spoke was ethically true. There were no loopholes in the moral conceptions
and statements of Jesus Christ. His ethical vision was wholly correct, correct in the age in which He lived and correct in every age that has followed it. — Billy Graham

I see young people being dismissed for supposedly wanting only "stupid" and "easy" material, or that they don't have an attention span longer than three minutes. I disagree with all those statements; I just think they aren't true. I'm saying that our generation wants stuff that is substantial and challenging, as well as thoughtful and endearing. Well, I don't know if I'm doing that, but I'm trying. — Bo Burnham

Throughout the narrative you will find many statements that are obviously nonsensical and quite at variance with common sense. For the most part these are true. — Robert Gilmore

In problems of logic, contradictory statements cannot be true; in the psyche, only contradictions are true. Self-image and shadow are Siamese twins, and the psyche is equally formed by the conscious and unconscious. Whatever appears to be true on the surface is linked to an opposite truth beneath the surface. What you see is not what you get. — Sam Keen

If we do take statements to be the primary bearers of truth, there seems to be a very simple answer to the question, what is it for them to be true: for a statement to be true is for things to be as they are stated to be. — J. L. Mackie

Which statements are true according to the passage?
A) Science, governments, and your doctor should be trusted.
B) 'Comforting her deep into the night' is a euphemism for sneaking candy.
C) The ugliest phrase used in this passage is 'female.'
D) Bad things really do come in threes. — Tupelo Hassman

But I hope that in the lives of Ender Wiggin, Novinha, Miro, Ela, Human, Jane, the hive queen, and so many others in this book, you will find stories worth holding in your memory, perhaps even in your heart. That's the transaction that counts more than bestseller lists, royalty statements, awards, or reviews. Because in the pages of this book, you and I will meet one-on-one, my mind and yours, and you will enter a world of my making and dwell there, not as a character that I control, but as a person with a mind of your own. You will make of my story what you need it to be, if you can. I hope my tale is true enough and flexible enough that you can make it into a world worth living in. — Orson Scott Card

We cannot think of ourselves as creatures whose rationality endows us with an especially significant advantage over others - indeed, we cannot think of ourselves as rational creatures at all - unless we think of ourselves as creatures who recognize that facts, and true statements about the facts, are indispensable in providing us with reasons for believing (or for not believing) various things and for taking (or for not taking) various actions. If we have no respect for the distinction between true and false, we may as well kiss our much-vaunted "rationality" good-bye. — Harry G. Frankfurt

There is a universal moral law, as distinct from a moral code, which consists of certain statements of fact about the nature of man, and by behaving in conformity with which, man may enjoy his true freedom. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Placed as the fossils are in their several tiers of burial-places the one over the other; we have in them true witnesses of successive existences, whilst the historian of man is constantly at fault as to dates and even the sequence of events, to say nothing of the contradicting statements which he is forced to reconcile. — Roderick Murchison

P.J. said, "That's true about any statement we make, isn't it? We never tell as much as we know."
"Right! So We're lying. So almost every statement is a lie, we can't help it."
"Yeah. But some statements are more lies than others. — Joyce Carol Oates

There is no sense in making statements that will not continue to be true after they are made. — Frank Knight

It is important to realise that two conflicting statements can both be equally true depending on the level from which you observe the same situation. — David Icke

What is true is that if the opening statements by defense and prosecution give an accurate image of the evidence that will be presented at trial, then it is only logical that the juror's views of the case at the conclusion of the presentation of evidence would be the same as at the end of the opening statement. In light of that fact, it is important for the defense to be scrupulously accurate about what the evidence will show, and give the jurors an ethical framework in which to consider that evidence. The jurors must be empowered to view the evidence from an ethical, as well as a factual, perspective, if they are to deliver an ethically-based verdict. — Clay S. Conrad

It is an unfortunate fact that proofs can be very misleading. Proofs exist to establish once and for all, according to very high standards, that certain mathematical statements are irrefutable facts. What is unfortunate about this is that a proof, in spite of the fact that it is perfectly correct, does not in any way have to be enlightening. Thus, mathematicians, and mathematics students, are faced with two problems: the generation of proofs, and the generation of internal enlightenment. To understand a theorem requires enlightenment. If one has enlightenment, one knows in one's soul why a particular theorem must be true. — Herbert S. Gaskill

We find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but statements of what is known with different degrees of certainty: "It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not true". — Richard P. Feynman

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.
Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Personal power involves producing success through modeling what works and taking consistent action towards your goals. At the same time, you have to internalize behavioral and belief changes in order to take the necessary action to produce the results. It's been said that successful people do what others won't, and that if you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right. Both of those statements are true. — Tony Robbins

Bits also play a part in logic, that strange blend of philosophy and mathematics for which a primary goal is to determine whether certain statements are true or false. True — Charles Petzold

Scientific education is based in the main on statistical truths and abstract knowledge and therefore imparts an unrealistic, rational picture of the world, in which the individual, as a merely marginal phenomenon, plays no role. The individual, however, as an irrational datum, is the true and authentic carrier of reality, the concrete man as opposed to the unreal ideal or "normal" man to whom the scientific statements refer. — C. G. Jung

It is true that in quantum theory we cannot rely on strict causality. But by repeating the experiments many times, we can finally derive from the observations statistical distributions, and by repeating such series of experiments, we can arrive at objective statements concerning these distributions. — Werner Heisenberg

If I can make one generalised statement, and generalised statements are never entirely true, nobody wants to be talked down to, kids included. — Spike Jonze

We also believe thoughts like "I'm hungry" or "I need pie" even when they aren't true. We react to these inaccurate statements as though they were scientific fact. As — Martha N. Beck

We were told in one lecture that it was possible to immunize against diphtheria and tetanus by the use of chemically treated toxins, or toxoids. And the following lecture, we were told that
for immunization against a virus disease, you have to experience the infection, and that you could not induce immunity with the so-called "killed" or inactivated, chemically treated virus preparation. Well, somehow, that struck me. What struck me was that both statements couldn't be true. And I asked why this was so, and the answer that was given was in a sense, 'Because.'
There was no satisfactory answer. — Jonas Salk

Psychologists at the end of the nineteenth century made a very interesting discovery: when we repress the truth, we suffer for it. If deep down we know something is true but we walk around pretending it isn't, it creates a conflict; and this conflict, in turn, prevents the different parts of ourselves from communicating with each other effectively. Parts of us get split off and ignored. And the more they're ignored, the angrier they get - the more frustrated. A man cannot serve two masters, Jesus said, and a house divided cannot stand. In saying this, Jesus made not only one of the greatest spiritual statements, but one of the greatest psychological ones as well. — Anonymous

True statement: Live it, love it, leave the wold better off than when you got here. — Ian Somerhalder

Accepting a religion may be more like enjoying a poem, or following the football. It might be a matter of immersion in a set of practices. Perhaps the practices have only an emotional point, or a social point. Perhaps religious rituals only serve necessary psychological and social ends. The rituals of birth, coming of age, or funerals do this. It is silly to ask whether a marriage ceremony is true or false. People do not go to a funeral service to hear something true, but to mourn, or to begin to stop mourning, or to meditate on departed life. It can be as inappropriate to ask whether what is said is true as to ask whether Keats's ode to a Grecian urn is true. The poem is successful or not in quite a different dimension, and so is Chartres cathedral, or a statue of the Buddha. They may be magnificent, and moving, and awe-inspiring, but not because they make statements that are true or false. — Simon Blackburn

In order for us to search out how our listeners' experiences are consistent with biblical truth, we ourselves must begin with the deep conviction that God's statements are always true. — Donald Sunukjian

Science thus tends necessarily towards an ultimate state in which all knowledge is embodied in the definitions of the objects with which it is concerned; and in which all true statements about these objects are therefore analytical or tautological and could not be disproved by any experience. The observation that any object did not behave as it should could then only mean that it was not an object of the kind it was thought to be. — Friedrich A. Hayek

There are two statements about human beings that are true: that all human beings are alike, and that all are different. On those two facts all human wisdom is founded. — Mark Van Doren

Why we play as children is not because it is our work or because it is how we learn, though both statements are true; we play because we are wired for joy, it is imperative as human beings. — John Thorn

No power of earth, or hell, men or devils, can possibly stand against the word of God; and hence it is the very height of folly and wild madness for any one to set up his thoughts or reasonings in opposition to the plain statements of Holy Scripture; and, on the other hand, it is the beginning and end of all true wisdom to submit in all things to the absolute authority of that Word which is settled forever in Heaven. — Charles Henry Mackintosh

There are many true statements about complex topics that are too long to fit on a PowerPoint slide. — Edward Tufte

Is it true or false that Belfast is north of London? That the galaxy is the shape of a fried egg? That Beethoven was a drunkard? That Wellington won the battle of Waterloo? There are various degrees and dimensions of success in making statements: the statements fit the facts always more or less loosely, in different ways on different occasions for different intents and purposes. — J.L. Austin

The following statement is true. The previous statement is false. — George Carlin

The saying of Protagoras is like the views we have mentioned; he said that man is the measure of all things, meaning simply that that which seems to each man assuredly is. If this is so, it follows that the same thing both is and is not, and is bad and good, and that the contents of all other opposite statements are true, because often a particular thing appears beautiful to some and ugly to others, and that which appears to each man is the measure — Aristotle.

THIS book is radioactive. And so are you. Unless you are dead, in which case we can tell how long ago you died by how much of your radioactivity is left. That's what radiocarbon dating is - the measurement of the reduction of radioactivity of old bones to deduce the time of death. Alcohol is radioactive too - at least the kind we drink. Rubbing alcohol usually isn't, unless it was made organically - that is, from wood. In fact, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tests wine, gin, whiskey, and vodka for radioactivity. A fifth of whiskey must emit at least 400 beta rays every minute or the drink is considered unfit for human consumption. Biofuels are radioactive. Fossil fuels are not. Of those killed by the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the best estimate is that fewer than 2% died of radiation-induced cancer. These statements are all true. They are not even disputed, at least by experts. Yet they surprise most people. — Richard A. Muller

The world is full of ruffians. The world is full of people of good character. Both of these statements are true, I believe, because within most of the people I have known lies the beginning points of both seemingly disparate paths. — R.A. Salvatore

Coca-Cola is just a concoction of chemicals; garlic wards off heart disease and cancer; an aspirin a day keeps the doctor away. None of these statements is true, but they contain a germ of truth. — John Emsley

Since these are themselves "scriptural" statements, that means that scripture itself points - authoritatively, if it does indeed possess authority! - away from itself and to the fact that final and true authority belongs to God himself, now delegated to Jesus Christ. — N. T. Wright

After a long investigation the SEC has fined Halliburton $7.5 million for issuing fraudulent statements exaggerating their profits in 1998 and 1999 during which their CEO was - oh who was it? Oh that's right ... Cheney himself has not been implicated in the scandal and according to Cheney's lawyer there is no allegation whatsoever that he acted in any way other than in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. And you know what? It's still true today. — Jon Stewart

The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true. — Paul Graham

My worst fears from jury selection manifested themselves in the verdict. This jury needed someone to tell them exactly how Caylee died. Piecing it together from circumstantial evidence was not good enough for them. They wanted the answers on a silver platter, but we didn't have the evidence to serve it that way. It's not just the verdict that tells me this, but also the manner in which it was reached. The fact that they didn't request any materials to review. The fact that they didn't have any questions for the judge. If the statements that the foreman of the jury made to the media are true, ten of these twelve jurors felt that ninety minutes of deliberation was sufficient to fully weigh, consider, and reject four weeks' worth of testimony that we on the prosecution used to establish that this was first-degree murder. The rest of the thirteen hours of deliberation had been spent trying to convince the two holdout jurors of the decision. — Jeff Ashton

We are all born into different beliefs, and therefore, we should leave it that way" - so goes the tolerant "wisdom" of our time. Mahatma Gandhi, for example, strongly spoke out against the idea of conversion. When people make such statements, they forget or don't know that nobody is born a Christian. All Christians are such by virtue of conversion. To ask the Christian not to reach out to anyone else who is from another faith is to ask that Christian to deny his own faith. One of India's leading "saints," Sri Ramakrishna, is said to have been for a little while a Muslim, for a little while a Christian, and then finally, a Hindu again, because he came to the conclusion that they are all the same. If they are all the same, why did he revert to Hinduism? It is just not true that all religions are the same. Even Hinduism is not the same within itself. Thus, to deny the Christian the privilege of propagation is to propagate to him or her the fundamental beliefs of another religion. If — Ravi Zacharias

But they argued as lawyers do, they twisted every answer I gave until it sounded like the opposite meaning, and I became so confused and afraid I found myself agreeing to statements that I knew were not true. — S.J. Parris

Statements of opinion are always more constructive in the first person "I" form. Compare these two statements: "You never take my suggestions seriously" and "I feel frustrated that you have not responded to my last four e-mails, which leads me to believe that my suggestions are not that important to you. Is that so?" The former can elicit a quick and defensive "That's not true!" The latter is much harder to deny. One — Sheryl Sandberg

All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms. — Thomas Sowell