A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh unless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.

But what is happiness except for the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.

If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity.

I have met men who are habitual liars. They have lied so long that they no longer can distinguish between the truth and a lie. Their sensitivity to sin has been almost completely deadened.

If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule: never lie to yourself.

Perfect wisdom has four parts; Wisdom, the principle of doing things right. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.

It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

In walking, the will and the muscles are so accustomed to working together and performing their task with so little expenditure of force that the intellect is left comparatively free.

It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

I propose to raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly of the truth.

Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true.

Everything you say should be true but not everything true should be said.

No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.

When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth.