William Cowper Quotes

I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it.

I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.

Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down".

Between the two men, somewhere, a truth is lying, and that is what I try to find.

Truth . . . and if mine eyes Can bear its blaze, and trace its symmetries, Measure its distance, and its advent wait, I am no prophet - I but calculate.

If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies.

A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.

A world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words.

The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.

The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to be either half truths or lies.

Truth is a torch which gleams in the fog but does not dispel it.

For there is a VOID in things; a truth which it will be useful for you, in reference to many points, to know; and which will prevent you from wandering in doubt.

Some mathematician said that pleasure lies not in discovering the truth but in searching for it.

Nobody ever sees truth except in fragments.

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.

There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.

Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.

We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.

We do not dwell in the Palace of Truth. But, as was mentioned to me not long since, "There is a time coming when all things shall be found out." I am not so sanguine myself, believing that the well in which Truth is said to reside is really a bottomless pit.

Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.

Truth wasn't something you went out and found. It was wide and vast and deep and unending, and all you could hope to see was a tiny part of it. And to see that part and to mistake it for the whole was to make of Truth a lie.

The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.

Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.

I take a deep breath. I'm not sure where that swell of desperation came from, but know that I've acknowledge it, it's impossible to ignore, like a living thing has awakened from a long sleep inside me. It writhes in my stomach and throat. I need to leave. I need the truth.

Unless you have the courage to doubt you will never come to know the truth.