satyam bruyat priyam bruyat na bruyat satyam apriyam
priyam ca nanrutam bruyat esha dharmah sanatanah
-Manusmriti
Speak truth in such a way that it should be pleasing to others. Never speak truth, which is unpleasant to others. Never speak untruth, which might be pleasant. This is the path of eternal morality, sanatana dharma.
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
―Christopher Hitchens
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Struggle toward the capital-T Truth, but recognize that the task is impossible—or that if a correct answer is possible, verification certainly is impossible.
In the end, it cannot be doubted that each of us can only see part of the picture. The doctor sees one, the patient another, the engineer a third, the economist a fourth, the pearl diver a fifth, the alcoholic a sixth, the cable guy a seventh, the sheep farmer an eighth, the Indian beggar a ninth, the pastor a tenth. Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete. And truth comes somewhere above all of them, where, as at the end of that Sunday’s reading: the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of that work.
―Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.
―Albert Einstein
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
―Marcus Aurelius
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
-Henry David Thoreau
All verbal teachings are just to cure an illness. Different illnesses require different cures. This is why sometimes it is said there is only Buddha and sometimes that there is no Buddha. True teachings cure the illness. If the cure works, the teachings are true. If they don’t cure the illness, the teachings are false. True teachings are false it they create opinions. False teachings are true if they destroy delusions. The illness is an illusion anyway, so all the cures are also illusions.
Baizhang
Don’t search for truth. Just stop having opinions.
Seng-T’san
Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. It is an initiation into life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.
-Vijayalakshmi Pandit
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection:
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action–
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule : Never lie to yourself.
-Paulo Coelho
Whatever you do for the sake of truth, will take you to truth. Only be earnest and honest. The shape it takes hardly matters.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj, (I am that, Chapter 38)
I once asked [Bertrand] Russell if he was willing to die for his beliefs. ‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘After all, I may be wrong.’”
-Leonard Lyons, The New York Post, June 23, 1964.
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
— P.C. Hodgell, Seeker’s Mask, Kirien
I don’t give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it is hell.
-Harry S Truman
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
-Oscar Wilde
Instead of always emphasizing what we actually know in science, it would be enormously fruitful to focus on what we do not know. For it is here that the wonders lie. To know is the domain that is safe, where risk taking is no longer necessary. To dwell in it forever is not only to never advance, it is also to promote a deceptive and false view of ourselves as knowing more than we do, of being more powerful that we really are.
-Lewis Thomas, Former President of Sloane Kettering Cancer Institute
That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.
-Rumi
Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.
-Carl Jung
There is no permanent form. Whatever appears is a state and has to disappear. Anything that is sensorially seen and interpreted by the mind is an appearance in consciousness, and is not true. What you see is not what is. Appearances will dissolve on investigation and the underlying reality will come to the surface. All appearance and disappearance presupposes a change against some changeless background.
Fascinated by names and forms, which are by their very nature distinct and diverse, you distinguish what is natural and separate what is one. From the bodily standpoint, all forms appear as separate entities. But at the consciousness level, they are consciousness-manifest and not separate.
You have no innate form. You have no form, no design. The names and forms you see are your consciousness only. The forms are only instruments for the functioning of consciousness. You are not the form but the consciousness which gives sentience to the form.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.6
सत्यमेव जयते नानृतं
सत्येन पन्था विततो देवयानः ।
येनाक्रमन्त्यृषयो ह्याप्तकामा
यत्र तत् सत्यस्य परमं निधानम् ॥६॥
satyameva jayate nānṛtaṁ
satyena panthā vitato devayānaḥ
yenākramantyṛṣayo hyāptakāmā
yatra tat satyasya paramaṁ nidhānam
Truth alone triumphs; not falsehood.
Through truth the divine path is spread out
by which the sages whose desires have been completely fulfilled, reach
where that supreme treasure of Truth resides
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true. The other is to refuse to accept what is true.
-Soren Kierkegaard
असतो मा सद्गमय । Asatō mā sadgamaya
From untruth lead us to Truth.
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय । tamasō mā jyōtirgamaya
From darkness lead us to Light.
मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय । mr̥tyōrmā amr̥taṁ gamaya
From death lead us to Immortality.
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ Om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ
Om Peace, Peace, Peace.
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28
Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.
―Stephanie Klein, Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
―Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays 2, 1926-29
Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.
-Swami Vivekananda
I find the great thing in this world is, not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A husband is tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep and this does not let his wife fall asleep. She asks him what’s wrong. He responds, “I owe money to our neighbor, the loan is due tomorrow but I can’t pay it”. She picks up the phone and calls their neighbor, “Sorry to bother you so late but my husband can’t pay that loan back tomorrow” and hangs up. Then she turns to her husband, “There, I fixed it. You can go to sleep in peace now, let the neighbor stay awake tossing and turning in his bed” The moral of the story is that you need to fight fire with fire: let your feelings be known. You will either get a positive response and your life can become better; or you will get a definitive “No” and you can start the healing process. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
Everything is changing constantly. But the real beauty of life is, throughout these changes, the underlying current of truth never changes. And if we can connect ourselves to the beauty of this truth, we can be stable through all the unpredictable uncertainties of life.
Radhanath Swami
When you don’t have a higher experience of truth then you see a grain of sand like an enormous mountain. But when you connect to that inner truth you see the grain of sand for what it is and strive for the real mountain.
Radhanath Swami
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Aristotle
Telling the truth is the slow, mundane, difficult route to a meaningful life.
Don Miller
Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.
Buddha
If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.Marcus Aurelius
Be true to your work, your word and your friend.
Henry David Thoreau
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Mahatma Gandhi
The lyrics below are from the sound track “Nirpathuve, Nadappathuve, Parappathuve” from the Tamil film Bharathi.
நிற்பதுவே, நடப்பதுவே, பறப்பதுவே,
நிற்பதுவே, நடப்பதுவே, பறப்பதுவே,
நிற்பதுவே, நடப்பதுவே, பறப்பதுவே,
நீங்களெல்லாம் சொற்பனந்தானோ?
பல தோற்ற மயக்கங்களோ?
சொற்பனந்தானோ?
பல தோற்ற மயக்கங்களோ?
கற்பதுவே, கேட்பதுவே, கருதுவதே,
நீங்களெல்லாம் அற்ப மாயைகளோ?
உம்முள் ஆழ்ந்த பொருளில்லையோ?
அற்ப மாயைகளோ?
உம்முள் ஆழ்ந்த பொருளில்லையோ?
வானகமே, இளவெயிலே, மரச்செறிவே,
வானகமே, இளவெயிலே, மரச்செறிவே,
நீங்களெல்லாம் கானலின் நீரோ?
வெறும் காட்சிப் பிழைதானோ?
வானகமே, இளவெயிலே, மரச்செறிவே,
நீங்களெல்லாம் கானலின் நீரோ?
வெறும் காட்சிப் பிழைதானோ?
போனதெல்லாம் கனவினைப்போல்
புதைந்தழிந்தே போனதனால்
நானும் ஓர் கனவோ?
இந்த ஞாலமும் பொய்தானோ?
நிற்பதுவே, நடப்பதுவே, பறப்பதுவே,
நிற்பதுவே, நடப்பதுவே, பறப்பதுவே,
நீங்களெல்லாம் சொற்பனந்தானோ?
பல தோற்ற மயக்கங்களோ?
சொற்பனந்தானோ?
பல தோற்ற மயக்கங்களோ?
காலமென்றே ஒரு நினைவும்
காட்சியென்றே பல நினைவும்
கோலமும் பொய்களோ?
அங்குக் குணங்களும் பொய்களோ?
காலமென்றே ஒரு நினைவும்
காட்சியென்றே பல நினைவும்
கோலமும் பொய்களோ?
அங்குக் குணங்களும் பொய்களோ?
காண்பதெல்லாம் மறையுமென்றால்
மறைந்ததெல்லாம் காண்பமன்றோ?
நானும் ஓர் கனவோ?
இந்த ஞாலமும் பொய்தானோ?
நிற்பதுவே, நடப்பதுவே, பறப்பதுவே,
நிற்பதுவே, நடப்பதுவே, பறப்பதுவே,
நீங்களெல்லாம் சொற்பனந்தானோ?
பல தோற்ற மயக்கங்களோ?
சொற்பனந்தானோ?
பல தோற்ற மயக்கங்களோ?
கற்பதுவே, கேட்பதுவே, கருதுவதே,
நீங்களெல்லாம் அற்ப மாயைகளோ?
உம்முள் ஆழ்ந்த பொருளில்லையோ?
அற்ப மாயைகளோ?
உம்முள் ஆழ்ந்த பொருளில்லையோ?
Video song
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