A Quote by Herman Melville

What plays the mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary feeling or opinion.

Herman Melville

Quote Topics

Application Feeling Insist Men Mischief Opinion Plays Temporary Truth Truth Is Universal Will

Quote Author

Herman Melville
American - Novelist
August 1, 1819 - September 28, 1891

But it is certainly not possible to insist on one hand that the formalism is complete and to insist on the other hand that its application to 'the actual' actually demands a step which cannot be derived from it.

Karl Popper

We do meditation, spiritual practices in this temporary body. Though this body is temporary, you have to use temporary things to realize the Truth.

Sathya Sai Baba

But perhaps the truth newly discovered is itself only temporary and when new discoveries are made these truths too will be abandoned. But one truth remains for ever, and that is the search for truth.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon

In truth, ideas and principles are independent of men; the application of them and their illustration is man's duty and merit. The time will come when the author of a view shall be set aside, and the view only taken cognizance of. This will be the millennium of Science.

Edward Forbes

We have hitherto considered only two possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and some other opinion, consequently, true; or that, the received opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of being one true and the other false, share the truth between them.

John Stuart Mill

I think you find universal truth when you get really honest with yourself and you can reach people. If you go deep enough, you have that core feeling, and that feeling can transcend the details of your experience.

Rachel Platten

The Truth is not Arbitrary or a Matter of Opinion, but can be Investigated, and Those who Earnestly Search for the Truth will Find It. The Truth is Hidden to the Blind, but he who has the Mental Eye Sees the Truth.

Gautama Buddha

It is generally my thesis then to insist on the importance of imagination in sex, to insist that the practice of sex, as performed among human beings, be accorded the same deliberate and playful application of fancy, imagination and intelligence as any other significant human activity.

John Norman

Without a thorough and deeply rooted understanding of the biblical view of truth as revealed, objective, absolute, universal, eternally engaging, antithetical and exclusive, unified and systematic, and as an end in itself, the Christian response to postmodernism will be muted by the surrounding culture or will make illicit compromises with the truth-impoverished spirit of the age. The good news is that truth is still truth, that it provides a backbone for witness and ministry in postmodern times, and that God's truth will never fail.

Douglas Groothuis

We're supposed to see "universal" love as heterosexual. What I insist upon in my work is that there is no such thing as universal love in literature.

Audre Lorde

The "truth" is the poem itself. Just because someone writes a poem about a feeling she has does not mean that the feeling will stay forever. The truth of the emotion of the poem remains, even if the particular truth of the poet changes.

Denise Duhamel

Keep one thing in view forever- the truth; and if you do this, though it may seem to lead you away from the opinion of men, it will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God.

Horace Mann

In truth, opinion may be taken for understanding; understanding cannot be taken for opinion. How so? Surely because opinion may be deceived; understanding cannot be. If it could, it would not be understanding but opinion. For true understanding has not only certain truth, but the knowledge of truth.

Saint Bernard

For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies and cultures change. For the scientist, the goal of a theory is to convey "truth for now"--to replace an old truth, while accepting that someday this theory, too, will be replaced by a new "truth," because that is the way science advances.