It is better to will the good than to know the truth.
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As quoted in The Renaissance : Essays in Interpretation (1982) by André Chastel , p 107Petrarch
Truth is ... one approach to the attainment of the good, but in and of itself, it is neither the good nor the beautiful ... Socrates, Pascal, and others regarded knowledge of the truth with regard to purposeless objects as incongruous with the good ... [by] exposing deception, truth destroys illusion, which is the principle attribute of beauty.
Leo Tolstoy
My beloved children, who are the pupils of my eye—Truth is silent. If Truth has dawned within you, then there will be no further speech. It is silence, and silence is the greatest Truth, the best question. If there is no Truth, then there will be a lot of talk and questions. One is good and the other is bad. If there is good within you, there will be no further noise within. But if you are full of bad, there will be so much of talk, speeches and questions. Therefore, seek the good. God does not make a noise. If you need anything, then you will have only to knock, and if you are tuned to that point, with the sound of that knock you will get an answer immediately. No noise, you don't have to make a sound. This is the Truth.
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. ... It's curious ... to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. The seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and hapiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.
Aldous Huxley
Is Error, though unwittingly supported by a host of good men, stronger than Truth? Are Right and Wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion? Oh no! Then I will go forward in the strength of the Lord of Hosts — in the name of Truth — and under the banner of Right. As it is not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of God, that great moral changes are effected, I am encouraged to fight valiantly in this good cause, believing that I shall "come off conqueror, and more than conqueror" — yet not I, but Truth and Justice. It is in such a contest that one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.
William Lloyd Garrison
I suppose I ought to think up some dramatic, quotable phrase for Public Information and the history books, but I'm damned if any of them come to mind. Besides, admitting the truth wouldn't sound too good (...) The truth, Russell, is that now the moment's here, I'm scared shitless. Somehow I don't think even Public Information could turn that into good copy.
David Weber
The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.
Joseph Addison
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