119 Truth Quotes

Truth and honesty are important parts of living a good life. These truth quotes remind us that being honest with ourselves and others helps build trust, strengthens relationships, and gives us peace of mind.

Sometimes telling the truth takes courage, especially when the easier choice is to remain silent or say what someone wants to hear. As you read these quotations, may you be encouraged to speak with honesty and kindness, and to stand by what you know is right. You may also enjoy our poems about truth.

Updated October 12, 2026, by Catherine Pulsifer.

Truth and Honesty in Everyday Life

Honesty helps us live with a clear conscience and build trust with those around us. These quotations remind us why truth matters.

Always tell the truth, not only because it is the decent thing to do, but because it gives you such an advantage over the man who is trying to remember his lies!
Sam Brookes

If I weed out the thorns of malice and untruth, and plant the seeds of helpful deeds, I'll reap the Rose of Lasting Youth!
John Kendrick Bangs, The Garden

Prudence accomplishes many things, honesty makes us brave and true
J. J. Thorne, Attend To Thine Alone

Seek the right, though the wrong be tempting; speak the truth at any cost;
S. K. Phillips, We Shall Be Satisfied

A birthday is a celebration of the beautiful truth that you are a unique and wonderful gift to this world.
Author Unknown

Be true to truth: the proudest name that sterling worth may win
Unknown, Be True

The world is full of sin, and vice, and crime. But honesty will stand the test of time
John Imrie

The world may think 'tis strange to show our love so pure, but Jesus alone gives truth that endures.
Catherine Pulsifer, Be The Hands And Feet Of Jesus

Happiness is ....truth our trusted tutor
William Arthur Ward, Happiness Is When

May beauty and truth, keep you in youth
J. S. Ogilvie, Preserve Your Old Age

Lord make me an instrument of your peace...where there is error, truth
St. Francis of Assisi, The Peace Prayer

Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence.
Mahatma Gandhi

Jesus did not come to strike a balance between grace and truth. He brought the full measure of both.
Andy Stanley

In order to move your life forward and be true to yourself, you must be willing to release all that is untrue.
Rhonda Britten

If you can bear to hear the truths you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.....you'll be a Man, my son
Rudyard Kipling, If

To embrace adulthood with a stoic face, humbled by the truth of life's relentless pace.
Catherine Pulsifer, Where Did The Time Go

In shadows of guilt, where secrets reside, truth waits patiently, it cannot hide,
Catherine Pulsifer, Shadows Of Guilt

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.
Frank Herbert

He [God] knows, He loves, He cares, nothing this truth can dim. He gives His very best to those who chose to walk with Him.
Benjamin Malacia Franklin, Just A Weaver

Everything Dies. That is the law of life - the bitter unchangeable law.
David Clement-Davies

The Courage to Speak the Truth

Speaking honestly is not always easy. Sometimes it takes courage to say what is right and stand by it.

He fails not who makes truth his cause nor bends to win the crowd's applause.
Richard Watson Gilder, He Fails Not

Oh, how we pine for truth! for something more than husks of learning!
Chauncy Hare Townshend, What Is Truth

We are either in the process of resisting God's truth or in the process of being shaped and molded by his truth.
Charles Stanley

The Easter mystery is defined, but unexplained, in just a short, strong, simple assertion, "The third day He rose again from the dead"; and this tremendous fact, on which the truth of Christianity as a religion depends
Wm. Croswell Doane

Live upright, honest and fair, give rather than take;
J. J. Thorne, Work For Friendship

Speak the truth at all times, true confidence inspire
Catharine Ryder

The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.
Lao Tzu

Christ died for all; and on the hearts of all who gladly decorate their cheerful homes at Christmas Tide, this blessed truth should fall
Unknown, Christmas Outcasts

The truth of the resurrection gives life to every other area of gospel truth.
John MacArthur

...the first lie,the first glass of drink, seem very small things, yet leave a dark stain upon the character.
Unknown, First Stain

It is strange but true; for truth is always strange; stranger than fiction
Unknown

Be strong today; the world needs men...to war for truth and conquer wrong.
W. T. Field, Strength

Hail to honest hearts and hands, and to the head that understands; hands that dare to truth subscribe
George W. Bungay, Heads, Hearts, And Hands

Without the Truth, there is no knowing.
Thomas Kempis, Without

Though trodden under foot of men, truth from the dust will spring, and from the press— the lip — the pen — in tones of thunder ring.
Daniel C. Colesworthy

The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness, beauty and truth.
Albert Einstein

If you want to be funny, you don't tell jokes. You just tell the truth about your life.
David Roche

...if you are both honest and kind, you'll be welcomed and loved most all of the time.
Juanita Roach

For rock solid friendship, never lie to your friends.
Saru Singhal

Peace is such a precious jewel that I would give anything for it but truth.
Matthew Henry

Truth, Kindness, and Friendship

Our words can strengthen relationships when we speak with both honesty and care.

It's better sometime to be deaf, than to hear only lying and pander
Unknown, It's Better

There's nothing so kingly as kindness and nothing so royal as truth.
Alice Cary, True Worth

For every truth there is an ear somewhere to heed it
Unknown, And I ...

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
Abraham Lincoln

Press on, press on to virtue; the prize you'll win at last, if with a courage unsubdued, and firm truth buckled fast
Daniel C. Colesworthy, Press On

Wisdom teaches...the treasure of integrity.
William Arthur Ward, Wisdom Teaches

Acting as if your life is good is closer to the truth than acting as if it is not.
Alan Cohen

Speak the truth, live the truth. Here our duty lie
J.J. Thorne, Think Carefully

Because Truth never dies, our Freedom lives and lets us seek the Light that Reason gives and thus promote the brotherhood of man
Unknown, Because

Christ is the Truth, the life and the Way....be advised strongly, you'll never regret, the road paved by Jesus, the safest road yet!
Greta Zwaan, How Much Did Christ Really Suffer?

And, for success, I ask no more than this: to bear unflinching witness to the truth.
James Russell Lowell, Ask No More Than This

Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
Flannery O'Connor

For friendship, my boy, is a bond between men that is founded on truth:
Edgar A. Guest, The Obligation Of Friendship

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I do not like the phrase, "It might have been!" It lacks all force, and life's best truths perverts
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, It Might Have Been

Friendship doth bind....truth only can complete the chain, its links enduring strength can give
Unknown, Friendship, Love, And Truth

Seek for a bosom all honest and true, where love, once awakened, will never depart....and you'll find there's no home like a home in the heart.
Eliza Cook, A Home In The Heart

To have struck one blow for truth in the daily fight with lies...shall be immortality.
Edwin Hatch, Towards Fields of Light

Teach me the truth, Lord, though my feet may fear the rocky path that opens out to me
Frances Lockwood Green

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; . . .
Max Ehrmann

Faith and the Search for Truth

These words reflect on truth, faith, wisdom, and the lessons we discover along the way.

There are two kinds of lies as well: The kind you live, the ones you tell.
Edgar A. Guest, A Real Man

I ask, O God....to speak the truth I know.
Florence Holbrook, A Prayer

My God, my All — my loving Father — thy Truth makes free!
Arthur Franklin Fuller, Contemplation

I know that right is right, that it is not good to lie.
Washington Gladden, Things That Abide

If this old world were a truthful bird, and candid and generous, too
Ardeen Foster, If

God, you a son have given me:...help me to teach him all I can of honesty and decency
Douglas Malloch

In some cases, the true issue is not that people cannot believe—it is that they "will not believe."
Paul E. Little, Know Why You Believe

There is nothing as powerful as the truth and often nothing as strange.
Daniel Webster

How blind are some to simple truth — experience must teach these youth.
Arthur Franklin Fuller, Self-Will

The greatest homage to truth is to use it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sordid pleasures have their day, Truth and Love shall ne'er decay; heaven and earth their blessings give, Love and Truth shall ever live.
John Imrie, A Souvenir Of Love

What could there be more purely bright in Truth's day-star?
Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream

Truth will prevail and Justice show - her tardy honors, sure, though slow.
Unknown, Fortitude And Trials

Painful as it may be, rejection can be a good thing. Rejection can force you to confront the truth about what you really want—a truth that, maybe, you haven’t admitted to anyone yet, not even yourself.
Alexandra Franzen, You're Going to Survive

Whatever happens, I want to be self-respecting and conscience free.
Edgar A. Guest

Be careful not to imagine the worst in a situation and then treat your imagination as if it were the truth.
Stanley Steel, How to Not Be Jealous

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear.
Henry David Thoreau

May the words that you daily utter be the words of beautiful truth!
Unknown, Watch Your Words

Everything changes, but God's Word doesn't change, because the truth never changes.
Rick Warren

Honor, honesty and truth are closely related concepts.
Kenneth Copeland

Learning from Truth and Experience

Experience often teaches us what we need to know, even when the lesson is difficult.

All our lives, truths are placed before us in symbolic form — not to deceive us, but to impress the truth upon us more convincingly.
Lionel B. Moses, The Truth About Santa Claus

Oh, yes, we mean all kind words that we say to old friends and to new; yet doth this truth grow clearer day by day: we love but few.
Unknown

When you shoot an arrow of truth, dip its point in honey.
Proverb

Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is boring without it.
Pearl S. Buck

Life is not a single undertaking with tightly related events but a series of exciting, swift pursuits full of truth and passion that culminate in a uniquely meaningful conclusion.
Charles H, Moore Jr., Jame Cockerille, Running on Purpose

... learn to listen even when the pinhead's spindrift flies - amid the chaff his voice gives forth will be some grains of truth.
Strickland Gillilan

What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.
C.S. Lewis

Adversity is the first path to truth.
Lord Byron

It does not require many words to speak the truth
Chief Joseph

We need to contemplate the truth of our past (and, perhaps, present) mistakes, while receiving heaps of God's love, allowing that contrast to birth thankfulness in our hearts that rises in worship to our Savior.
Brian Simmons, Jeremy Bouma, Grace and Hope

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
Charles Dickens

Truth is a passion. One cannot learn it; one must possess it.
Ernst Toller

Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.
Alexander Pope

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Mark Twain

If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you can't tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf

By doubting we come at truth.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now - always
Albert Schweitzer

Honesty is the 1st chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson

"If anyone love me He will keep my word," truths from the lips of Christ, Our Sovereign Lord.
Eloise A. Skimings

Short Truth Quotes to Remember

These final sayings offer simple reminders to be honest, think carefully, and let truth guide our actions.

Sister on you I can depend. From you, I hear the truth. It has been that way since our youth.
Sam R. V. Gould, On You, I Can Depend

The greatest truth must be recognition that in every man, in every child is the potential for greatness.
Robert Kennedy

We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne

There are three parts in truth: first, the inquiry, which is the wooing of it; secondly, the knowledge of it, which is the presence of it; and thirdly, the belief, which is the enjoyment of it.
Francis Bacon

Ne'er let the day dawn on my sight that sees me shorn of sense of right
Arthur Franklin Fuller

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Mark Twain

I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs.
Samuel Goldwyn

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

At Christmas time especially, when life is not a Norman Rockwell painting, we can be deceived into believing that what we feel is truth.
Rebecca Bryan, The Carols of Christmas

Truth is what stands the test of experience.
Albert Einstein

Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong.
Henry Ward Beecher

When you tell the truth you never have to worry about being caught and having to ask for mercy.
Catherine Pulsifer, Best Practice

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Sherlock Holmes

Yet much has been foretold to man, there’s knowledge and great guidance; the Word of God holds forth the truth and teaches man abidance.
Greta Zwaan, The Sower Becomes The Seed

Remember good, remember truth
Priscilla Leonard, Forget - Remember

Lying makes a problem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past.
Rick Pitino

Let each and every one, to whom is told " They Say," just pause, before replying, and ask who are the "They."
Lillian E. Curtis

Procrastination is the thief of time, truth reveals it at its close; sip the tongue and lips in truth. And give the heart repose.
J.J. Thorne

A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.
Edgar J. Mohn

Conclusion

We all face moments when telling the truth is difficult. These quotes remind us that honesty is worth choosing, even when it requires courage. May we remember to speak truthfully, treat others with kindness, and live in a way that reflects the values we believe in.

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