Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. Even with no motive to be false, it is very hard to say the exact truth.

I try to be honest; I really do try not to exaggerate the story. I try to be accurate.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.

Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood.

Truth never was indebted to a lie.

Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.

Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.

Sometimes it is necessary to make things clearer than the truth.

Stick to the truth, avoid exaggeration.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

I always say you don't want to get it right, you want to get it true.

We aim at simplicity and hope for truth.

You don't have to be straight. You just have to shoot straight.

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood.

Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.

Slender certainty is better than portentous falsehood.

Honesty I can take. Lies I get upset about.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

People are starved for the truth, and when something comes along that even looks like the truth, people will latch onto it because everything's so false.

It might be said that the pose of absolute honesty is the most dishonest one of all.

I can do no more than tell the truth.

There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood that I am surprised they can be used by anyone in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love.

I can't fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.