Thucydides Quotes

I think what's always important is not to be contrarian for its own sake but to really get at the truth.

Seek the company of those who are looking for the truth, but run from those who have found it.

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

I hold it certain that to open the doors of truth and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent.

Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.

A just thinker will allow full swing to his scepticism. I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.... We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.

Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that some particular creed is the truth.

Inquiry is human; blind obedience brutal. Truth never loses by the one but often suffers by the other.

Skepticism is not an end in itself; it is a tool for the discovery of truths.

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

Believe those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it; doubt all, but do not doubt yourself.

I believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than believe, to inquire rather than to affirm.

The average man can't prove most of the things that he chooses to speak of, and still won't research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of

Doubt . . . impels a search for the truth. It opens the door to knowledge. Faith puts a lock on the door. Indeed, . . . faith anesthetizes the desire to seek knowledge and truth.

The truth is out there, but it’s often discomfiting and nuanced and hard to find, and not nearly as satisfying as believing whatever you want and mocking those who don’t.

[Unbelievers] think they have made great efforts to get at the truth when they have spent a few hours in reading some book out of Holy Scripture, and have questioned some cleric about the truths of the faith. After that, they boast that they have searched in books and among men in vain.

Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties.

Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand truth, and in his left hand search after truth, deign to proffer me the one I might prefer, in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request search after truth.

Are we willing to do for the truth what others are willing to do for a lie?

I wanted my players to always be searching, especially for truth. I wanted them to know what they believed and be able to defend it. Truth will always stand the test of scrutiny.

One must not mistake majority for truth.

The great fault of mankind is that it will not think.

Le public ne sait pas toujours de sirer le vrai. Thepublicdoesnot alwaysknowhow todesirethetruth.