Truth
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5.Free inquiry, suppression and the triumph of truth
5a.Truth strong in free and open encounter with falsehood
See also: Liberty 5a · Knowledge 8b · Censorship 2d · Opinion 10a
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On FriendshipVol. 9
- p. 41Truth prevails even in the public assembly when openly laid out, so friendship must be free of falsehood.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 938–939Parable of water and scum: God hits truth and falsehood; falsehood is cast off, what profits stays.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 224Truth will emerge by its own power if handled with reason and modesty; contention lets superstition choke it.read · scan
John Milton, AreopagiticaVol. 3
- p. 189Freedom of advice serves truth, learning and the commonwealth.read · scan
- p. 190–191Milton invokes Parliament's love of truth and reasonableness to reconsider the printing order.read · scan
- p. 191–192Licensing hinders discovery of truth in religious and civil wisdom.read · scan
- p. 197Parliament members are said to honor truth.read · scan
- p. 201Scanning error confirms truth, so reading all tracts is the safest way.read · scan
- p. 204Truth, when given a free hand, opens herself faster than method can overtake her.read · scan
- p. 210True scholars serve God and truth, and to distrust them suppresses that service.read · scan
- p. 213Truth and understanding are not wares to be monopolized, traded and stamped like broadcloth or wool packs by tickets and statutes.read · scan
- p. 219–220If sure of holding truth, teachers should welcome open publication and refutation; sloth or inability alone explains fear of it.read · scan
- p. 225–226Freed spirits eagerly pursue truth; the nation is likened to an eagle gazing at the sun.read · scan
- p. 226–227Truth needs no licensing; in free and open encounter with falsehood she is never worsted, and confuting is her best suppressing.read · scan
- p. 227Truth is strong next to the Almighty and needs no licensings; these are the shifts error uses against her.read · scan
- p. 229–230Even erring opponents serve to polish and brighten the armor of truth.read · scan
John Milton, Paradise RegainedVol. 4
- p. 384Truth contending with falsehood defeats the Fiend's wiles.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 338Inquiry is human, blind obedience brutal; truth never loses by inquiry; the most useful truths are plainest.read · scan
- p. 346–347Objection and debate sift out truth, which needs temper and judgment.read · scan
George Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and PhilonousVol. 37
- p. 228–229Truth and beauty alike gain from strict scrutiny, while the false lustre of error cannot bear review.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 233Cherish triumphant truth in the heart; error's structure falls once one sees it totter.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 210–211Suppressing opinion deprives men of exchanging error for truth, or of the livelier impression of truth from its collision with error.read · scan
- p. 214–215Beliefs are safeguarded only by open invitation to disprove them; this is the sole attainable certainty for a fallible being.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Origin of SpeciesVol. 11
- p. 497A false theory could hardly explain so many classes of facts; misrepresentation does not long endure.read · scan
James Russell Lowell, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1370–1371Truth alone is strong though evil prosper; falsehood struggles with truth.read · scan
5b.Truth as scattered, partial and completed by opposing opinions
See also: Censorship 1b · Opinion 10b
John Milton, AreopagiticaVol. 3
- p. 220–221Myth of Osiris: Truth was hewn in pieces and scattered; seekers gather her limb by limb until Christ's return, so licensing must not hinder them.read · scan
- p. 221–222Truth's body is made of harmonious pieces; seeking more truth by what we know is the golden rule, and those suppressing seekers are the dividers.read · scan
- p. 227Suppression and custom keep truth separated from truth, the fiercest disunion of all.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 302–303Must profess two opposite truths when reproached for omitting one; Jesuits and Jansenists conceal them.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, Minor WorksVol. 48
- p. 397Each sect's truths and falsehoods destroy the other's.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 149–151Mill seeks to separate truth from error in Coleridgians, Germans and Carlyle, and to assimilate truths from his wife's mind.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 238–240Popular opinions are seldom the whole truth; heresies are often suppressed fragments of it.read · scan
- p. 240–241Rousseau's doctrine preserved truths popular opinion lacked, though current opinion was nearer the truth overall.read · scan
- p. 241Truth in practical life is a combining of opposites achieved through struggle between combatants.read · scan
- p. 242Rejects the claim that Christian morality is the whole truth on morals.read · scan
- p. 244–246Truth has a chance only if every opinion embodying some fraction of it finds advocates and is listened to.read · scan
- p. 246–247Truth is completed only through collision of adverse opinions; suppressing views assumes our infallibility.read · scan
John Greenleaf Whittier, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1349–1351No share of truth is vainly set in the world's fallow.read · scan
5c.The dead dogma: truth held without its grounds
John Milton, AreopagiticaVol. 3
- p. 216–217Truth is a streaming fountain that becomes a muddy pool of conformity if not kept flowing; belief held on authority becomes heresy.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 225–227Truth gains more from the errors of one who thinks for himself than from true opinions held without thought.read · scan
- p. 227–229Even true received opinions, if not freely discussed, are held as dead dogma, not living truth.read · scan
- p. 229–230Truth held as prejudice without knowing its grounds is not knowledge, merely superstition clinging to words.read · scan
- p. 237Asks whether unanimous acceptance of truth makes it perish; truth needs vital understanding.read · scan
5d.The denial that truth always prevails over persecution
See also: Religion 11c
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 351He is confident that truth will prevail against the knavish tricks of envious enemies.read · scan
John Milton, AreopagiticaVol. 3
- p. 192–193Ages rarely recover a rejected truth, and whole nations fare worse for its loss.read · scan
- p. 211–212Licensers pass only what is vulgarly received; bold sentences like Knox's, perhaps divinely inspired, would be struck out and lost to posterity.read · scan
- p. 227–229Truth's first appearance is often unplausible and prone to prohibition; licensing would suppress truth itself.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 315Inquisition and the Society are scourges of truth; Pascal's condemned Letters are condemned only on earth, not heaven.read · scan
- p. 316Pascal asserts his cause is good and the truth will prevail against accusations of heresy.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, LettersVol. 48
- p. 346–347Enemies of truth have power to oppress it, yet nothing worse is doneread · scan
Daniel Defoe, The Shortest-Way with the DissentersVol. 27
- p. 146–147Errors settled among us are declared equally destructive to the Truth.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 216The truth of an opinion is part of its utility; no belief contrary to truth can be really useful.read · scan
- p. 216–217Defenders of received doctrines invoke truth for their side but forbid the other side to argue usefulness.read · scan
- p. 220–221Claim that legal penalties are powerless against truth but effective against errors.read · scan
- p. 222Those who bring new truths deserve gratitude, yet the theory that truth may be persecuted harmlessly treats them as criminals.read · scan
- p. 222Denies that truth always triumphs over persecution; truth's only advantage is being rediscovered until one appearance escapes suppression.read · scan
- p. 223–225The rule wrongly assumes atheists must lie, yet admits those willing to lie and rejects those who confess an unpopular creed rather than affirm a falsehood.read · scan
James Russell Lowell, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1371–1372Truth on the scaffold, wrong on the throne, yet the scaffold sways the future.read · scan
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