When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely enjoy exercising authority usually lose it.

The day will soon come when I will show the world that the transmission of power and speech without the aid of any wires is possible.

Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.

The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are slowest in getting general acceptance.

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.

There is but one thing of real value—to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.

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

Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.

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

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked.

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.

To offend a strong man, tell him a lie. To offend a weak man, tell him the truth.

The liar is no better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom.