The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
H. L. Mencken

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
H. L. Mencken

All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.
Kurt Vonnegut

I never know how much of what I say is true.
Bette Midler

We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.
Victor Hugo

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.
Michelangelo

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

The spirit is the true self. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

True nobility is exempt from fear.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

People say New Yorkers can't get along. Not true. I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab. One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine.
David Letterman

It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.
Vladimir Lenin

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

What is true belongs to me!
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca