Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

People like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies.

By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.

For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.

What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.

Men are liars. We'll lie about lying if we have to. I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.

When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.

Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.

There is little more powerful than when truth joins action.

Like many people, I have a fascination with lies and the people who tell them. I wouldn't say I've never told a lie, but I don't think I've ever told one without both assuming I would be found out and feeling absolutely rotten about it.

I don't like to tell lies.

White lies always introduce others of a darker complexion.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it.

Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.

It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

I want to have a society based on truth. That means no longer hiding what we used to hide.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatsoever. But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.

No matter how mendacious elites may be, they cannot extinguish the forces for good in the world.

We must wait for the slow progress of moral causes

Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it.

There are two sides to reconciliation; the law aspect and the moral values. Unless there is improvement for both, changes will not come by easily

He who does not need to lie is proud of not being a liar.

… he knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech.

A lie should be trampled on and extinguished wherever found.

We would be in trouble as a society if there wasn't a constant pressure to make reforms and to be just.