The truth is revealed by removing things that stand in its light, an art not unlike sculpture, in which the artist creates, not by building, but by hacking away.
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.
When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.
To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
The ability to ask questions is the greatest resource in learning the truth.
Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.
When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, that is the heart of science.
You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
I am here to serve. I am here to inspire. I am here to love. I am here to live my truth.
If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it dissolves. The recognition of illusion is also its ending. Its survival depends on your mistaking it for reality.
Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
Be true to yourself and everything will be fine.
No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.