This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"What are these virtues of spirit? They are faith, which shows us truths entirely elevated above the senses; hope, which makes us aspire to things invisible; charity, which makes us love not of sense, not of nature, not of self-interest, but with a love pure, solid and unchangeable, having its foundation in God." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL
"It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"The truths which are not translated into lives are dead truths, and not living truths." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"The ideals of yesterday are the truths of today." - William McKinley
"There are the trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true." - Niels Bohr, fully Aage Niels Bohr
"The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life. " - Ernest Renan, aka Joseph Ernest Renan
"The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind. " - Frances Wright, known as Fanny Wright
"All truths that are kept silent become poisonous. " - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"All truths are not to be told." - George Herbert
"Language is like amber in its efficacy to circulate the electric spirit of truth, it is also like amber in embalming and preserving the relics of ancient wisdom, although one is not seldom puzzled to decipher its contents. Sometimes it locks up truths which were once well known, but which, in the course of ages, have passed out of sight and been forgotten. In other cases it holds the germs of truths, of which, though they were never plainly discerned, the genius of its framers caught a glimpse in a happy moment of divination." - George Augustus Sala, fully George Augustus Henry Sala
"The whole edifice of Indian civilization is imbued with spiritual meaning. The close interdependence and perfect harmonization of the two serve to counteract the natural tendency of Indian philosophy to become recondite and esoteric, removed from life and the task of the education of society. In the Hindu world, the folklore and popular mythology carry the truths and teachings of the philosophers to the masses. In this symbolic form the ideas do not have to be watered down to be popularized. The vivid, perfectly appropriate pictorial script preserves the doctrines without the slightest damage to their sense." - Heinrich Robert Zimmer
"A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value. " - Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov
"A truth in ethics is a conclusion backed by reasons. The “correct” answer to a moral question is simply the answer that has the weight of reason on its side. Such truths are objective in the sense that they are true independently of what we might want or think. We cannot make something good or bad just by wishing it to be so because we cannot merely will that the weight of reason be on its side or against it. And this also explains our fallibility: We can be wrong about what is good or bad because we can be wrong about what reason commends." - James Rachels
"Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of why there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open." - Clive Bell, fully Arthur Clive Heward Bell
"There is no such thing as educational value in the abstract. The notion that some subjects and methods and that acquaintance with certain facts and truths possess educational value in and of themselves is the reason why traditional education reduced the material of education so largely to a diet of predigested materials." - John Dewey
"There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home." - John Stuart Mill
"There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life." - John Stuart Mill
"Every definition implies an axiom, since it asserts the existence of the object defined. The definition then will not be justified, from the purely logical point of view, until we have proved that it involves no contradiction either in its terms or with the truths previously admitted." - Henri Poincaré, fully Jules Henri Poincaré
"The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use." - Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis
"From the cave to the skyscraper, from the club to weapons of mass destruction, from the tautological life of the tribe to the era of globalization, the fictions of literature have multiplied human experiences, preventing us from succumbing to lethargy, self-absorption, resignation. Nothing has sown so much disquiet, so disturbed our imagination and our desires as the life of lies we add, thanks to literature, to the one we have, so we can be protagonists in the great adventures, the great passions real life will never give us. The lies of literature become truths through us, the readers transformed, infected with longings and, through the fault of fiction, permanently questioning a mediocre reality. Sorcery, when literature offers us the hope of having what we do not have, being what we are not, acceding to that impossible existence where like pagan gods we feel mortal and eternal at the same time, that introduces into our spirits non-conformity and rebellion, which are behind all the heroic deeds that have contributed to the reduction of violence in human relationships. Reducing violence, not ending it. Because ours will always be, fortunately, an unfinished story. That is why we have to continue dreaming, reading, and writing, the most effective way we have found to alleviate our mortal condition, to defeat the corrosion of time, and to transform the impossible into possibility." - Mario Vargas Llosa, fully Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa
"As the mind learns to understand more complicated combinations of ideas, simpler formulae soon reduce their complexity; so truths that were discovered only by great effort, that could at first only be understood by men capable of profound thought, are soon developed and proved by methods that are not beyond the reach of common intelligence. The strength and the limits of man?s intelligence may remain unaltered; and yet the instruments that he uses will increase and improve, the language that fixes and determines his ideas will acquire greater breadth and precision and, unlike mechanics where an increase of force means a decrease of speed, the methods that lead genius to the discovery of truth increase at once the force and the speed of its operations." - Marquis de Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat
"I would like – from a viewpoint of the scientist, raised in the spirit of exact natural sciences – to elucidate the question whether, and to what extent, an actually religious outlook is compatible with the knowledge furnished by natural sciences. Or more briefly: whether a man educated in natural science can be at the same time a genuine believer. To this effect we have to treat fully independently two specific questions. The first of them is: what requirements a religion poses on the belief of its followers and what are the tokens of real religiosity? The second question is: what kind of laws the natural science teaches us and what truths are untouchable (unantastbar) to it? By answering both questions we will be able to decide whether, and to what extent, the requirements (Forderungen) of religion are compatible with requirements of natural science and if therefore religion and natural science can stay side by side without contradicting each other. " - Max Planck, fully Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck
"Age after age, history repeats itself when men and women, in their ignorance, limitations and pride, sit in judgment over the God-incarnated man who declares his Godhood, and condemn him for uttering the Truths they cannot understand. He is indifferent to abuse and persecution for, in his true compassion he understands, in his continual experience of Reality he knows, and in his infinite mercy he forgives." - Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani
"So the current technological revolution is in fact the hand of G-d at work; it is meant to help us make G-d a reality in our lives. And as time goes on, science will show itself more and more to parallel the truths of G-d, thereby revealing the intrinsic unity in the entire universe." - Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
"During the next hundred years, the question for those who love liberty is whether we can survive the most insidious and duplicitous attacks from within, from those who undermine the virtues of our people, doing in advance the work of the Father of Lies. “There is no such thing as truth,” they teach even the little ones. “Truth is bondage. Believe what seems right to you. There are as many truths as there are individuals. Follow your feelings. Do as you please. Get in touch with your self. Do what feels comfortable.” Those who speak in this way prepare the jails of the twenty-first century. They do the work of tyrants." - Michael Novak
"Yet it cannot be denied that faith is mere feeling. It has something like a cognitive content, and the existence of rival parties- scholastics and mystics- in the history shows that idea is a vital element in religion. Apart from this, religion on its doctrinal side, as defined by professor Whitehead, is ' a system of general truths which have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended'. Now, since the transformation and guidance of man's inner and outer life is the essential aim of religion, it is obvious that the general truths that it embodies must not remain unsettled." - Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal
"A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life." - Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
"Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths that are indispensable to salvation, of no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usually understood." - Moses Mendelssohn
"All great truths are simple in final analysis, and easily understood; if they are not, they are not great truths." - Napoleon Hill
"It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak." - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
"Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten." - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman
"The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement. The opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth (Niels Bohr)." By this, he means that we require a larger reading of the human past, of our relations with each other, the universe and God, a retelling of our older tales to encompass many truths and to let us grow with change." - Neil Postman
"Truth cannot be defined or tested by agreement with 'the world'; for not only do truths differ for different worlds but the nature of agreement between a world apart from it is notoriously nebulous." - Nelson Goodman, fully Henry Nelson Goodman
"There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true." - Niels Bohr, fully Neils Henrik David Bohr
"He declared that it could not be done and did me the honor of delivering a lecture on the subject, at the conclusion he remarked, "Mr. Tesla may accomplish great things, but he certainly will never do this. It would be equivalent to converting a steadily pulling force, like that of gravity into a rotary effort. It is a perpetual motion scheme, an impossible idea." But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile." - Nikola Tesla
"Truths are not truths to you unless you realize them within yourself. Without realization, they are just ideas. For spiritual perception, spiritual consciousness lies not in vague theological ideas, but in the acquisition of Self-realization." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
"Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh." - Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry
"All life is a dream. But whether it be dream or truths to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken." - Pedro Calderón de la Barca, fully Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño
"Problems of any nature only get solved when people are willing to tell the truth about their systemic nature. There are times when the truth is temporarily shielded from our view, but too often we would rather not deal the real issues because of social, political or economic self-interest or pressure. Telling the truth and being open to the real truth requires courage, and sometimes risk, but is always empowering and more often than not, very rewarding. Eventually the truth will not be denied, so why not start dealing with the systemic truths of your business today? Have courage and believe in yourself!" - Peter Senge, fully Peter Michael Senge
"Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, and tell them; and the truth of truths is love." - Philip James Bailey
"It is interesting thus to follow the intellectual truths of analysis in the phenomena of nature. This correspondence, of which the system of the world will offer us numerous examples, makes one of the greatest charms attached to mathematical speculations. " - Pierre-Simon Laplace, Compte de Laplace, Marquis de Laplace
"And I understood then that I was a fool when I told you I would take my turn in singing the honors of Love, and admitted I was terribly clever in love affairs, whereas it seems I really had no idea how a eulogy ought to be made. For I was stupid enough to think that we ought to speak the truth about each person eulogized, and to make this the foundation, and from these truths to choose the most beautiful things and arrange them in the most elegant way; and I was quite proud to think how well I should speak, because I believed that I knew the truth. " -
"The human soul is such a world. The truths of to-day, of yesterday, of the whole past are settling down upon it a golden rain from the hand of God, making the glorious wrappings of time and of the great futurity. Thus the dark facts of earth, its slavery, its suffering, its sickness, its calamities, its burned up cities, its solemn cemeteries of the dead, all may be trans formed into human spirit and make the soul come to heaven at last rich in its tenderness and love. The earthly knowledge is made into never dying power. Bulwer says, " Oh how much greater is the soul of one man than the vicissitudes of the whole globe !" And elsewhere he says, " Not in the knowledge of tnings without, but in the perfection of the soul within, lies the true empire of man." " -