TODAYS QUOTES ON TRUTH

[prasanna]

Truth Quotes

The Truth is heavy, therefore few care to carry it.

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. ---Josh Billings

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so. --Theodore Parker

The truth that makes us free is always ticking away like a time-bomb in the basement of everybody’s church. --Robert Farrar Capon

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.-- Winston Churchill

To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle. -- George Orwell

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.-- Galileo Galilei

We are often unprepared for Truth, which is why Truth is revealed to us progressively. --Chip Brogden

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth. --Agnes Repplier

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Truth: the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death.-- John Gilmore

Do not fear to repeat what has already been said. Men need the truth dinned into their ears many times and from all sides. The first rumor makes them prick up their ears, the second registers, and the third enters.--Rene Theophile Hyacinthe LaÎnnec

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. --Jim Davis

The truth is "hate speech" only to those who have something to hide.--Michael Rivero

From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth; from the laziness that is content with half-truths; from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth – oh God of Truth deliver us!—Unknown

The search for truth implies a duty. One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. --Albert Einstein

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. --Thoreau

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.-- Martin Luther

In this world, those who seek the truth will also find trouble. --Gary Amirault

One truth out of context can prove very dangerous. –Gregory Phillips

The truth is "hate speech" only to those who have something to hide. -- Michael Rivero

To some the truth is an insult, to others life from the dead. --Gary Amirault


Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size. --Blaise Pascal

When you know the truth, the truth makes you a soldier. --Gandhi

A well-grounded assurance is always attended with three fair handmaids: love, humility and holy joy. --Thomas Brooks

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.-- Blaise Pascal

It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie. -- Adrian Rodgers

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.-- Martin Luther King

The ability to lie is a liability.--Unknown

When in doubt, tell the truth. --Mark Twain

Always tell the truth. That way you don't have to remember what you said.--Mark Twain

It matters enormously if I alienate anyone from the truth. --CS Lewis

"It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true." --Henry Kissinger

Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying. -- Vincent de Paul

[Pravin Kumar]

All most meaningful Quotes. I will add one to them of the Great Osho:

Truth is something that cannot be spoken or told. It can only be experienced.

[prasanna]

Thank u very much pravinji for your nice quote of OSHO"S .  I will store it in my dairy.

[Pravin Kumar]

This is posted in Meditation and Mind Control Chapter No.34 , The Meditation.


Someone has asked: What is truth? Is it possible to know it partially? And if not, then what can one do to attain it? Because it is not possible for every person to be a sage.

First, each person has the potential to become a sage. It is a different matter if someone does not transform this potential into a reality. It is a different matter if a seed is unable to grow into a tree, but every seed has the intrinsic capacity for becoming a tree. Every seed has this potential. That it does not become one is an entirely different matter. If it does not get fertilized, does not find any soil, does not get any water or light, the seed will die, that is possible, but the seed did have the potential.

Each and every person has the potential to become a sage. That is why you should first of all drop this idea from your mind that to become enlightened is the special privilege of only some people. To become enlightened is not the right of any special people. To become enlightened is not the right of any special people. And the people who have spread this idea are only doing it to feed their egos. If someone says that it is very difficult to become enlightened and possible for only very few people, it nourishes their ego. This is just a way for some people to fulfill their ego. Otherwise, everyone has the potential to be sage, because there is space and opportunity for everyone to experience truth.

I said it is another thing if you don't experience it. For that, only you will be responsible, your potential will not be responsible. All of us sitting here have the power to get up and walk, but if we don't walk and go on sitting, then what? You discover your powers by making them active; you don't know them until you use them.

Right now you are just sitting here, and no one can know that you have the capacity to walk.  And if you look inside yourself, even you will not be able to locate this capacity to walk. You will not be able to find it. You will only know whether you have the capacity to walk after you try to walk.And only after you go through the process of trying to become enlightened will you know if you have the potential or not. Those who don't try will defnitely feel that only some people have this potential. This is wrong.

So the first thing: you have to understand that to attain to truth is everyone's right, it is everyone's birthright. In this respect no one has any special rights.

And the second thing which has been asked is: "What is truth? And is it possible to now it partially?"

Truth cannot be known partially, because truth is one. It cannot be broken into parts. This means that it is not possible for a person to know a little bit of truth now, then a little bit more, and then a little bit more. It does not happen like this. Truth is experienced as one. This means that it is not a gradual process. It is experienced totally, it is experienced in an explosion. But if I say that it can only be known totally, you will feel a little apprehensive because you feel so weak, how can you possibly know it totally?

When a man climbs up to the roof of the house he reaches it all at once, yet he has climbed the steps to it one at a time. He does not reach the roof in one step. When he is on the first step he is not on the roof and when he is on the last step he is still not on the roof: he begins to approach the roof, but he is still not on it.

It is possible to move closer to the truth gradually, but when you arrive at truth it is total. This means that you can gradually move closer to truth, but the attainment of truth is total, it is never in parts. It is never in fragments, remember this.

So the introduction to meditation that I have given you is a set of steps: you will not know truth through them, but you will move closer to truth through them. And at the last step which I have called 'emptiness of the emotions', when you jump beyond this emptiness of the emotions too, you experience truth. But then truth is known in its totality.

The experience of the divine does not come in fragments, it happens as a whole. But the way to reach the divine is divided into many parts, but truth itself is not in parts. So don't think, "How can a person as weak as I am know the whole truth? I can only manage to know it if it can be known bit by bit."

No, you will also be able to know it because you only need to walk on the path for a short distance at a time. It is not possible to walk the whole length of the path all at once. You cannot walk the whole length of a path at once; you have to walk a little at a time. But the destination is always reached as a whole, you never get there in parts -- remember this.

Someone has asked: What is truth?

There is no way to say it in words. To this day, it has been impossible to say it in human language -- and it will never be said in the future either. It is not that in the past we did not have a language rich enough to say it, and that we will be able to say it in the future. It will never be said.

There is a reason for this. Languages developed for the purpose of communicating with other people.  Language was created in order to communicate with people, it was not created to express truth. And it is unlikely that any of the people who created language had known truth. This is why there is no word for the ultimate truth. And the people who knew it through silence. This means that when they exprienced  truth they were totally silent, no word for the ultimate truth. And the people who knew truth did not know it through language, they knew it through silence. This means that when they exprienced truth they were totally silent, no word  existed there. So there is a problem: when they started talking about it after the experience, they found one point, truth, which there was no way to describe. It is not possible to provide words for it. And when they provided words, the words were incomplete, they fell short.

And on the basis of these words alone, conflicts arose -- based on these very same words. Because all words are inadequate, they are unable to express truth. They are just like hints. It is as if somebody is pointing his finger to the moon, and if we grab his finger thinking that this is the moon, then there will be trouble. The finger is not the moon.  The finger is just an indication. Who ever grabs hold of the indication will be in trouble. You have to let go of the finger so that the thing to which it is pointing becomes visible. You have to drop the words, and only then will you have a glimpse of truth. But someone who grabs hold of the words will miss the experience.

This is why there is no way for me to tell you what truth. And if somebody claims to be telling you, he is deceiving himself. If somebody tells you this, he is deceiving himself and you. There is no way to describe truth. Yes, there is a way to tell you how to experience truth. The method to know truth,the process, can bedescribed, but what truth is cannot be said.

There are methods to attain truth, but there are no definitions of truth. During these three days I have discussed these methods, and you may feel that we have completely ignored truth itself. I have talked about truth, but I have never said what truth actually is.

No, it cannot be said, it can only be experienced. Truth cannot be described but it can be expeirenced -- and it will be your experience. The method can be given, but the experience of truth will be your own. The experience of truth is always individual, and it is not possible to communicate it to another.

So this is why I will not tell you what truth is. It is not because I want to withold something from you, but because it cannot be said. In ages past, during the time of the Upanishads, whenever it happened that someone would go to a sage and ask, "What is truth?" the sage would look hard at the person.

Again the person would ask, "What is truth?" Then he would ask a third time, "What is truth?"

And the sage would say, "I tell you again and again, but you don't understand."

The person would say, "What are you saying? I have asked you three times, and all three times you were silent. And you say that you have told me again and again?"

Then the sage would say, "I wish you were able to understand my silence, because then you will have understood what truth is."

Silence is the only way to say it. Those who have known truth have become silent. When truth is talked about, they become silent.

If you can be silent, you can know it. If you are not silent you will not be able to know it. You can know the truth, but you cannot make another person know it. This is why I won't say what truth is -- because it cannot be said.

[tourbi]

When I went to school for broadcasting, we had to interview people who had seen an accident.  Something set up for class.  Each person told the truth of what they experienced.  
Each story told was different from the next.  
Each truth was perfect for the individual, but not for the situation.
It was an interesting lesson.
Each of us sees things, hears things, feels things differently.  Each of our truths can be very different from everyones elses, thus the story of the blind men and the Elephant.

What is important is to honor our own truth and also the truth of others.  To only honor our own is not always wise.  We might not get to see the entire picture, the entire truth if we don't have the courage to see ours and how it fits with other peoples truth.

Thank you for posting these.

[tourbi]

John Godfrey Saxe's ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend,

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL.

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

There is a great image of the elephant here http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/bli ... phant.html