Reflecții și Maxime vol. I.

Doubt must follow certainty, like its shadow. It is the smile of the spirit.

Truths that have no origin in error are like people who have no childhood.

Let us have the truth on our side; here is the secret of eloquence and virtue, here is moral authority. It is the highest maxim of art and life.

To lie does not imply the meaning of denying the truth, nor of not clinging to it.

A truth is, as truth, independent of the existence of real thought. An ideal meaning does not become truth because I think it with my real consciousness, or because anyone else thinks it with his real thought. He is not dependent on real consciousness, but real consciousness is dependent on truth.

All truths begin by being paradoxes and end by becoming commonplaces.

Everyone brings to the world, as it is his way, his truth...

The truth is not always sublime.

Do good at any time, freedom above all else he loves, and a throne even if you own them, the truth never betrays him.

To elude is not to elucidate.

Not infrequently we are as far from the "truth" as we are, only because we shy away from saying absurdities.

You do not enrich your soul with small truths; who would make his fortune by collecting the gold dust scattered on the earth?

Great truths grow only from a soil from which also grow great roots. He who does not have the courage to "wrong" will never discover great truths.

It would be extremely unfortunate if the truth were always "in the middle". This would make it the prerogative of mediocrity.

What is proven today was once only imagined.

A lie always needs the support of another.

Truth lies between narrow and precise limits; error, on the other hand, has no limits.

Hypothesis... an assumption that you consider true without being able to prove it with any facts.

He who does not know the truth is just ignorant. But whoever knows him and claims that it is a lie, that is a criminal.

In the effort to combat falsehood and ignorance, it requires the courage to speak the truth, the intelligence to recognize it, the art to make it usable as a weapon, the sufficient judgment to choose those in whose hands it becomes effective.

I can deny a thing without feeling obliged to sully it and without robbing others of their right to believe in it.

Everything has its own truth. Consciousness is what enlightens him, through the attention he gives to it.

The lie is not satisfied with those whom it deceives: in the end it eats the liar; and after all, she swallows herself.

How can I believe in absolute truths, when the very notion of "absolute" is created by the relativity of human thinking?

The need for truth is the need for our thinking to agree with itself.

The need for truth and beauty is man's strength in relation to other animals, but also his weakness in relation to them.

You can burn the truth in the fire, it rises like the Phoenix from its own ashes.

After lying, you need a good memory.

If there were absolute truth or absolute error, we would have no notion of time, nor life, nor death, but only the notions of infinity, eternity, and nothingness.

The truth... good that you have to take from everywhere you can find it.