Quotes & Sayings About Truth Telling

Healing begins at truth-telling. Tame your emotions and focus on what matters. — Jo Ann Fore

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

I have wondered that even in the era of colour the black and white photographs are so appealing? I feel that as per saying - in black and white -they speak the truth. — Amit Abraham

Men are sometimes hanged for telling the truth. — Joan Of Arc

We're in a place where no words can tell the truth about what happened ... But they have to. This was hell on earth. — Aleksander Kwasniewski

Phrase it in an interesting way; don't phrase it in a mean or unfriendly way. Bob Dole said that if there's anything he would have done differently, he would have said [to George Bush] "Start telling the truth about my record" instead of "Stop lying about my record." Frankly, had he done that, life might be different for Bob Dole today. — Roger Ailes

Telling the truth and making someone cry is better than telling a lie and making someone smile. — Paulo Coelho

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Since spies must survive by telling lies, it can be hard to know when they are telling the truth. — Stephen Grey

I could never be a career politician, because I believe in telling the truth. — Jesse Ventura

He was telling me then that lyrics have truth
behind them, because they come from somewhere
inside the person who wrote them. I look back
down at the page. — Colleen Hoover

Strange that in the day of tumult, it should be something so innocuous as a dribble of water that prompts a person to tears. — Kate Morton

You have a foul mouth. And to think you kiss your children with it." "According to my mates, my mouth is perfect. And there's nothing dirty about telling the truth. — Eve Langlais

I say, when you tell the truth, you never offend nobody, particularly if you do it with dignity. — Pat Cooper

There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you. — Niccolo Machiavelli

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar. — Cassandra Clare

For me, exploration is about that journey to the interior, into your own heart. I'm always wondering, how will I act at my moment of truth? Will I rise up and do what's right, even if every fiber of my being is telling me otherwise? — Ann Bancroft

And came to her a realization that the largest humiliation for the person was a lie. And the viler the one to whom you lie, the greater is the humiliation. — Osyp Nazaruk

I scrutinized his face for honesty and then looked away. He was either a lunatic, a really good liar, or he was actually telling the truth. — Amy Astorga

In Advance of All Parting is a tough, unsentimental examination of marital grief. Musically elegant and inventive, understated and passionate, the poems give us a profound glimpse into how the events of a life can form a center of gravity that fixes the self in its force field. Theres a cold, truth-telling clarity about them that makes them as unsettling as they are beautiful. Ansie Baird has created a richly-drawn world in which this elemental drama plays out, and the result is vivid, startling poems in which pain has left its indelible tracks. — Chase Twichell

The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us ... — Miriam Makeba

Seek the truth, not what is comfortable. Seek the real, not the easy. — Gerald May

Playing guitar is like telling the truth. — B.B. King

The scariest part to any story is the sliver of truth you hide in the horror. Sometimes its not about the axe wielding murder, but the fact that he's lurking somewhere in your basement. Sure, you keep telling yourself that you'll replace the burnt out light every week. — Rob Manuel

By telling lie you can hide the truth, but u can't reject it. — Munendra Dwivedi

It meant nothing. Some people are like that: everything comes out like a lie. Not that they're brilliant liars, just that they're useless at telling the truth. You get left with no way to tell what's the real fake and what's the fake one. — Tana French

Telling one lie almost always requires another, and before the storyteller knows it, they will be caught inside of their own web. — Jenna Alatari

I consider telling him the truth. That if I were dead like Snow White and he kissed me like that, surely my heart would kick back to life — Colleen Hoover

I knew that his confession would be a tremendous relief to him but a burden to me. Such information, once shared, can never be retracted. — Karen Essex

And I could test myself - my own courage - with it, too, because when the doors at either end of the secret staircase were closed, it was impenetrably dark. I hid in the staircase, shivering with terror, telling the narrative: The little girl was in a dark, dark place but she was very brave ... Sometimes the door at the bottom opened, and a wedge of light sliced up the stairs; a maid, her arms filled with folded laundry, would find me and ask in amazement what I was doing there.
And though I answered lightheartedly that I was playing, the truth is that I was not entirely certain what I was doing there, crouched and frightened in the darkness. Only now, sixty years later, do I see that I was arming myself, rehearsing panic, loss, and helplessness; assessing my own cowardice and courage, and and the same time reassuring myself that the door would always open, that the light would always find its way in. — Lois Lowry

If someone tells you a lie, they're not telling you the truth, but they are telling you something. It just takes longer to figure out what. — Margot Livesey

That's the trouble with a story spinner. You never know what's real and what's made up. Even when they are telling the truth, they can't stop themselves from spinning it into something better; something prettier, with more of a pattern to it. — Philip Reeve

Don't spoil a good story by telling the truth. — Isabella Stewart Gardner

Ram, can't you see it doesn't matter anymore what I do, but you, you're still needed at home. You go. If my people are still there, tell them the truth. Let them rejoice that Fergox took me away before I could do any more damage to my country."

"No, I refuse that mission, Princess. See, you are still ordering me around like a ruler--it's in you, it's what you are meant to be, no matter what others are telling you. I've given my word that I'll only escape with you by my side. So forget about yourself for a moment: if you care anything about me, about the fate of my country and yours, you are coming with me or I don't go."

"But, Ram--"

"You've got my little horse still?"

She nodded.

"I believe that in the Islands it is understood that when you accepted it, you took responsibility for my soul. I'm holding you to that, Tashi. — Julia Golding

I look at the human sciences as poetic sciences in which there is no objectivity, and I see film as not being objective, and cinema verite as a cinema of lies that depends on the art of telling yourself lies. If you're a good storyteller then the lie is more true than reality, and if you're a bad one, the truth is worse than a half lie. — Jean Rouch

Okay, you're telling the truth. By the way, Nick, you have the most screwed-up life. You're either boring as all get out, or you're about to die. There's no middle ground with you. You might want to work on that. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Lincoln is theology, not historiology. He is a faith, he is a church, he is a religion, and he has his own priests and acolytes, most of whom have a vested interest in [him] and who are passionately opposed to anybody telling the truth about him. — Lerone Bennett Jr.

Trust grows when people see leaders translate their personal integrity into organizational fidelity. At the heart of fidelity lies truth-telling and promise-keeping. — Max De Pree

In this world, only those people who have fallen to the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, who are not just without any social consideration but are regarded by all as being deprived of that foremost human dignity, reason itself - only those people, in fact, are capable of telling the truth. All the others lie. — Simone Weil

We find it easy to believe that praise is sincere: why should anyone lie in telling us the truth? — Jean Rostand

The truth will lead me to all. — Maya Angelou

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. — Samuel Johnson

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. — Samuel Johnson

The best that can happen to a girl, Claire, is to be a bit plain, like you. You think I'm being unkind, but I am telling you a truth. A plain girl has a longer time to herself, and when a man falls in love with her, he loves her for herself, for who she is. — Jane Smiley

Sometimes lies are more dependable than the truth. — Orson Scott Card

As no two people see the world the same way, all trips from here to there are imaginary; all truth is a tale I am telling myself. — Brion Gysin

If you have value as an artist it's probably going to be in your capacity to let things inside you get past things that are placed there to keep you from telling the truth. The more you see things as clearly and coldly as you can, the more value you're going to have. — Tony Kushner

But how do we know it's really you? I mean, I could put a saucepan on my head and call myself the God of Boiled Dumplings; wouldn't mean I was telling the truth. — K.J. Parker

Telling lies is a really terrible thing. These days, lies and silence are the two greatest sins in human society you might say. In reality, we tell lots of lies, and we often break into silence. However, if we were constant;y talking year-round, and telling only the truth truth would probably lose some of its value. — Haruki Murakami

When a man loses superiority, he loses potency. That's what all this talk about castrating women is about. Castrating women are those who refuse to pretend men are better than they are and better than women are. The simple truth - that men are only equal - can undermine a culture more devastatingly than any bomb. Subversion is telling the truth. — Marilyn French

Truth's nakedness is not concerned with whom it strikes - painfully, or with pleasure; responding appropriately to its ingenuous temperament, however, rewards perceptions of unbiased transparency. — T.F. Hodge

I think it's time for the media and our leaders to get real and start telling the truth about the impact of adultery on our national life. — Mike Pence

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD OL BOY AND THE NICE GAL
The good of boy myth and the nice gal are a kind of social conformity myth. They create a real paradox when put together with the "rugged individual" part of the Success Myth. How can I be a rugged individual, be my own man and conform at the same time? Conforming means "Don't make a wave", "Don't rock the boat". Be a nice gal or a good ol' boy. This means that we have to pretend a lot.
"We are taught to be nice and polite. We are taught that these behaviors (most often lies) are better than telling the truth. Our churches, schools, and politics are rampant with teaching dishonesty (saying things we don't mean and pretending to feel ways we don't feel). We smile when we feel sad; laugh nervously when dealing with grief; laugh at jokes we don't think are funny; tell people things to be polite that we surely don't mean."
- Bradshaw On: The Family — John Bradshaw

When a poem doesn't work, the first question to ask yourself is, 'Am I telling the truth?' — Wendy Cope

There are certain mistakes that you know you just have to make, know you're going to make, no matter what conscience, logic or fear are telling you. It's a simple truth of human existence. Across thousands of years of civilisation, throughout the rise and fall of empires and our stumbling ascent from the forests to the stars, greater men than Zal had contemplated the wisdom of their intentions before coming to exactly the same conclusion.
And there was usually a girl involved, yeah. — Christopher Brookmyre

When I forget the power of the word, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget the deep relief of telling the truth, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget to look for the holiness all around me, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget why the gospel matters, I read Frederick Buechner. — Barbara Brown Taylor

There is no truth except the truth that exists within you. Everything else is what someone is telling you. — Neale Donald Walsch

Whatever we had is over. It died the minute I walked downstairs and realized the world I'd always known was a lie.- Blaire Wynn — Abbi Glines

I was beginning to understand something I couldn't articulate. It was a jazzy feeling in my chest, a fluttering, a kind of buzzing in my brain. Warmth. Life. The circulation of blood. Sanguinity. I don't know. I understood the enormous risk of telling the truth, how the telling could result in every level of hell reigning down on you, your skin scorched to the bone and then bone to ash and then nothing but a lingering odour of shame and decomposition, but now I was also beginning to understand the new and alien feeling of taking the risk and having the person on the other end of the telling, the listener, say:
Bad shit at home? You guys are running away?
Yeah, I said.
I understand, said, Noehmi. — Miriam Toews

Ollie I would never leave you, she whispered, and she knew she was telling the truth.
-Schuyler — Melissa De La Cruz

Bradley Cooper was an asshole, but he was - like Sidney Lumet, like George Clooney - the nicest guy in the world. I sound like the biggest ass-kisser ever. But I'm telling the truth, I swear to God! — Peter Jacobson

Women have a hard enough time in this world: telling them the truth would be too cruel. — H.L. Mencken

What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this
two things: I crave truth. And I lie. — Tana French

As a writer I want everybody to get a chance to voice their opinions. If each character thinks that they're telling the truth, then it's valid. Then at the end of the film, I leave it up to the audience to decide who did the right thing. — Spike Lee

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

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

So much relies on one person assuming the other is telling the truth. If a person can lie to you about one thing, he can lie about something else. — Meg Rosoff

Our biggest fear is not in expressing the truth but that we will be attacked or belittled because of our truth. — Kelli Wilson

There's an old Northlands saying that goes like this: When lies don't help. try telling the truth. Loki knew it well, of course, but preferred his own version, which was: When lies don't help, tell better lies. — Joanne Harris

In order to deceive others, it is necessary also to deceive oneself. The actor playing Hamlet must indeed believe that he is the Prince of Denmark, though when he leaves the stage he will usually remember who he really is. On the other hand, when someone's entire life is based on pretense, they will seldom if ever return to reality. That is the secret of successful politicians, evangelists and confidence tricksters - they believe that they are telling the truth, even when they know that they have faked the evidence. Sincerity, my dear Julia, is a quality not to be trusted. — Sarah Caudwell

As a journalist I'm asked whether I make things up. As a novelist I'm accused of telling the truth. — Lennox Morrison

Mister Lipwig, the world lives between those who say it cannot be done and those who say that it can. And in my experience, those who say that it can be done are usually telling the truth. It's just a matter of thinking creatively. — Terry Pratchett

Please explain to me why John Kerry sounds more dickish telling the truth than Bush sounds when he's lying. How is that possible? — Jon Stewart

The writer's job is to tell the truth, — Ernest Hemingway,

Livy." His voice deepened to nearly guttural. Desire unfurled in her abdomen. Then reality slammed her in the face.
"Are you glamoring me?" she asked, anger rippling along her skin.
His eyebrows drew down. "Glamoring?"
"Yeah. What vampires do." She put her hands on her hips. "Making me want you."
He chuckled again. "Oh, you want me, and it's all you. There's no such thing as glamoring."
Truth. She opened her senses, and he was definitely telling the truth. "Oh. — Rebecca Zanetti

All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man. — Edward R. Murrow

Sometimes we look at gay being a bigger sin than being proud or not telling the truth. I don't think God categorizes sins. — Joel Osteen

When I won the Oscar, there was something telling me 'this isn't the truth'. I had to get back to real work. — Juliette Binoche

If people are always comfortable with you, you're probably not telling them the whole truth. — Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel

Above all, tell the truth. — Grover Cleveland

The conventional wisdom is - people say this all the time - you should only write something when you're far enough away from it that you can have a perspective. But that's not true. That's a story that you're telling. The truth of it is here, right now. It's the only truth that we ever know. And I'm interested in that truth and the confusion being part of the experience and sorting it your way through and figuring it out. — Charlie Kaufman

Don't be afraid to tell the truth. It's better to hurt someone by truth than to make them happy by lies. — Khaled Hosseini

I steer clear of telling. I can't come out with it; the outlandish truth of me. How can I reveal this to someone innocent and unsuspecting? With those who know my story I talk freely about us ... but with others I keep it hidden, the truth. I keep it under wraps because I don't want to shock or make anyone distressed ... I try to keep a distance from those who are innocent of my reality. At best I am vague. I feel deceitful at times, but I can't just drop it on someone, I feel. It's too horrifying, too huge. — Sonali Deraniyagala

This is me telling the truth. It just so happens to be a very explosive truth. — Corey Clark

Her voice was flat, in a way Myrna recognized from years of listening to people trying to rein in their emotions. To squash them down, flatten, them, and with them their words and their voices. Desperately trying to make the horrific sound mundane. — Louise Penny

People think the blues is sad. They hear people moaning and such. That's not the blues. That's just somebody singing slow ... The blues is about truth-telling. — Alberta Hunter

Writing a biography is a delicate - not a reckless - process, where the end result, if done properly, is simply the truth revealed. This delicate and intricate research process has never before been done for Bob Crane, a man with a story worth telling. — Carol M. Ford

What a terrible man, I thought, worse than a traitor. At least a traitor betrays people by telling the truth. Uncle Zhu tried to save himself by telling lies. — Ji-li Jiang

The truth is that Fate does not go out of its way to be dramatic. If you or I had the power of life and death in our hands, we should no doubt arrange some remarkably bright and telling effects. A man who spilt the salt callously would be drowned next week in the Dead Sea, and a couple who married in May would expire simultaneously in the May following. But Fate cannot worry to think out all the clever things that we should think out. It goes about its business solidly and unromantically, and by the ordinary laws of chance it achieves every now and then something startling and romantic. Superstition thrives on the fact that only the accidental dramas are reported. — A.A. Milne

All works of nonfiction, or memoir, have to first and foremost be art before they can be true. They have to be artful first before they can be truthful... If you emphasize the truth-telling at the expense of art, nobody is going to be interested in it. And if you sacrifice truth in the name of art, you risk triviality. There's a constant balance between those two. — Alan Shapiro

He would not mind hearing Petrus's story one day. But preferably not reduced to English. More and more he is convinced that English is an unfit medium for the truth of South Africa. Stretches of English code whole sentences long have thickened, lost their articulations, their articulateness, their articulatedness. Like a dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud, the language has stiffened. Pressed into the mold of English, Petrus's story would come out arthritic, bygone(117). — J.M. Coetzee

All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth. — George Orwell

Johanna sat by the fire every night and worked on her tapestry. Dumfries waited until she was settled in her chair and then draped himself across her feet. It became a ritual for Alex to squeeze himself up next to her and fall asleep during her stories about fierce warriors and fair maidens. Johanna's tales all had a unique twist, for none of the heroines she told stories about ever needed to be rescued by their knights in shining armor. More often than not, the fair maidens rescued their knights.
Gabriel couldn't take issue with his wife. She was telling Alex the truth. It was a fact that maidens could rescue mighty, arrogant warriors. Johanna had certainly rescued him from a bleak, cold existence. She'd given him a family and a home. She was his love, his joy, his companion.
She was his saving grace. — Julie Garwood

And still the text will remain, if it is really cryptic and parodying (and I tell you that it is so through and through. I might as well tell you since it won't be of any help to you. Even my admission can very well be a lie because there is dissimulation only if one tells the truth, only if one tells that one is telling the truth), still the text will remain indefinitely open, cryptic and parodying. — Jacques Derrida

I made myself a rule: write out of love. And when you love somebody, you have to tell the truth about who they are - not the cute "truth" in your head of who they are, the one where you did everything right and they did everything wrong. — Leigh Newman

I believe in telling the truth. — Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does. — Anita Brookner

None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth. — Mark Twain

Bill Clinton is a liar, a perverted kind of a guy anyway, and he is always stroking black folks rather than telling them the truth. — Tucker Carlson

Because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they'd never admit in normal conversation. It's a way for people to be honest without telling the truth. — Chuck Klosterman