Friedrich Nietzsche on truth

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed. 

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Hannah Arendt on simple narratives and truth

Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality. 

~ Hannah Arendt

1977

Frank Drebin on the truth

Truth hurts.  Maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with the seat missing, but it hurts.

 

~ Frank Drebin (played by Leslie Nielson in the movie, Naked Gun)

Caitlin Johnstone on uncomfortable truths

To be an authentic person is to constantly plunge headlong into the uncomfortable, the unfamiliar, the unknown and the unpredictable, even when doing so feels like a kind of death, for no other reason than because that’s where the truth is. 

It’s to always welcome the truth with open arms, even when it is unpleasant, embarrassing, inconvenient or downright terrifying, come what may. 

~ Caitlin Johnstone, "To Be an Authentic Person Is To Stare Deeply Into the Face of Uncomfortable Truths," LewRockwell.com, September 24, 2024

Henry Kissinger on truth

It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true. 

~ Henry A. Kissinger

Søren Kierkegaard on the two ways to be fooled

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

~ Søren Kierkegaard

Tucker Carlson on mainstream media lies and getting to the truth

Theo Von: One of the sad things is that we don't know where to get any information anymore.

Tucker Carlson: It's a fair question.  How do you make sense of the world if you don't believe what people are telling you about the world?  How can you make rational decisions if you can't be certain that the input is accurate?  I can't really answer that.  I know what I do which is I don't read any - The New York Times, The Washington Post - I don't want that in my head... or NBC News.  They're liars, I know they're liars.  I've written for all three of those; I know that they lie so I don't get anywhere near it.

TV: When you say they lie, do you write an article and you give it to your publisher or producer, and then they say "no" and change it?

TC: No, it means they don't assign stories on things they want to ignore.

TV: I see.  And where do they get those orders from?

TC: It's all by instinct.  So their job is to protect the people who are in charge.  It's to protect the people who have power currently.  The point of journalism is to challenge the people who have power on behalf of the rest of the country.  And they've inverted the formula.  And so if you work for The Washington Post, the idea is just protect Jeff Bezos and his friends at all costs, and that's what they do.

But I'll tell you a way that I think is a good start to figuring out what's true is watch what they become hysterical about.  You'll see somebody occasionally say something that people just land on him.  "Shut up!  Shut up!  Let's put him in jail!"  Whatever that guy is saying is true.  Or points in the direction of the truth.

When someone says something that's legit and say that noone's mad at this schitzophrenic on the bus who's talking about whatever, the earth is flat, lizard people (which, by the way, may be true, I don't know).  Nobody cares because he's not a threat to anyone because he's insane.  Insane people are not to the existing order because they're crazy, they're self-discrediting.  But when they become hysterical about somebody - "he's a conspiracy theorist!" - without even refuting what he told you, then you know he's on to something.

~ Tucker Carlson, interview with Theo Von, 54:45 mark, October 31, 2023

St. Augustine on truth

The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it.  Let it loose; it will defend itself.

~ St. Augustine

Jeffrey Tucker on market forces revealing reality

I like markets most when they tell the truth.  Politicians don't.  Bureaucrats don't.  Media does not.  But market forces, they can be tricked for a very long time, but in the end there's a hard wall: it's called economic law.  And the numbers in the end have to add up.  So there's nothing Washington can do about this.  We're going to see the truth and I'm excited about these times.  As you say, it's going to be painful, but I'm glad for it because you don't want to live in a world of leverage and fraud and fakery forever living off perpetual motion machines that are going to die out.

~ Jeffrey Tucker, "FTX cryptocurrency scandal is just the beginning," Will Cain Podcast, 28:30 mark, November 15, 2022

Aristotle on deviation from the truth

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold.

~ Aristotle

Robert Murphy on admitting that the people you hate sometimes say true things

If you allow yourself to admit that the people you hate sometimes say true things, it's extremely liberating and keeps you from painting yourself into a corner.

~ Robert P. Murphy, tweet, September 24, 2022

Aeschylus on war and truth

In war, truth is the first casualty.

~ Aeschylus

Gustave Le Bon on how the crowd clamors for illusions

The masses have never thirsted after truth.  Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.

~ Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, p. 137

Arthur Schopenhauer on the cyclical nature of truth

Truth is allowed only a brief celebration between two long ages: first damned as a paradox, then underrated as trivial.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

George Orwell on denial of truth

However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.

~ George Orwell

Gad Saad on the Left vs. Right attacks on truth

I would argue that the types of nonsense that the Right and Life espouse - the attacks on truth - are not equivalent in how poisonous they are.  Let me explain why.  The Right might reject a particular theory, whereas that we know is true.  A scientific theory. Say we reject evolution because... whatever, our Christian beliefs.  But on the other hand, the Left has completely rejected the possibility that truth even exists.  So one of the idea pathogens that I discuss in the book - the grand-daddy of all idea pathogens - is false modernism.  False modernism is the "philosophical movement" that argues that there are no objective truths.  Right?  Everything is shackled by subjectivity.  Everything is shackled by your own personal biases.  There is no such thing as truth. 

Well, as you might imagine that's very disconcerting to a scientist because we do wake up every morning thinking that there are truths to be uncovered.  We do use the scientific method thinking that we're going to make some contribution to some greater truth.  Now, of course, truth can change.  Right?  What was truth in science 300 years ago may need updating.   That's why we talk about provisional truths in science.   But the epistemological attack on truth - the fact that Left or some Leftists negate even the possibility that truth exists - that strikes me as profoundly more nefarious as an idea pathogen than anything coming from the Right.

~ Gad Saad, "How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense," Stansberry Investor Hour, October 8, 2020

Albert Einstein on authority

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

~ Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein
1979

John Stuart Mill on the suppression of truth

... The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.  History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution.  If not suppressed forever, it may be thrown back for centuries.

~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Kevin Duffy compares investors to politicians

Investors, by necessity, are truth seekers.  With their own capital at risk, they are subject to relatively short feedback loops.  Deviation from reality can be costly... 

Politicians, by contrast, are truth deniers: they have little skin in the game and feedback loops tend to be much longer.  They traffic in lies, their constituents in self-deceit.  They excel at kicking the can down the road.  Still, they are not immune to the laws of economics which, when they finally exert themselves, often do so with a vengeance.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Trouble With Conformity," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 3, November 2, 2020

Jimmy Kimmel on Dr. Fauci: "He delivers the truth"

Dr. Fauci doesn’t sugarcoat his words and refuses to be pressured by politicians.  He delivers the truth, as difficult as it may be to hear, earnestly and with one goal: to save lives.

~ Jimmy Kimmel, "The 100 Most Influential People of  2020," Time, September 22, 2020