A Quote by Hosea Ballou

Not the least misfortune in a prominent falsehood is the fact that tradition is apt to repeat it for truth.

Hosea Ballou

Quote Topics

Apt Fact Falsehood Least Misfortune Prominent Repeat Tradition Truth

Quote Author

Hosea Ballou
American - Priest
April 30, 1771 - June 7, 1852

There is no doubt that truth is to falsehood as light is to darkness; and so excellent a thing is truth that even when it touches humble and lowly matters, it still incomparably exceeds the uncertainty and falsehood in which great and elevated discourses are clothed; because even if falsehood be the fifth element of our minds, notwithstanding this, truth is the supreme nourishment of the higher intellects.

Leonardo da Vinci

Truth and falsehood are opposed; but truth is the norm not of truth only but of falsehood also.

C. S. Lewis

For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.

Lysander Spooner

For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth.

Lysander Spooner

Those who feel guilty contemplating "betraying" the tradition they love by acknowledging their disapproval of elements within it should reflect on the fact that the very tradition to which they are so loyal—the "eternal" tradition introduced to them in their youth—is in fact the evolved product of many adjustments firmly but delicately made by earlier lovers of the same tradition.

Daniel Dennett

Falsehood is the jockey of misfortune.

Jean Giraudoux

There is no such thing as absolute truth and absolute falsehood. The scientific mind should never recognise the perfect truth or the perfect falsehood of any supposed theory or observation. It should carefully weigh the chances of truth and error and grade each in its proper position along the line joining absolute truth and absolute error.

Henry Augustus Rowland

Repeat the truth so that the dull can grasp it! Repeat the truth with the speed of a woodpecker's beak making holes in tree trunks!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

The more sincerity is developed, the greater share of truth you will have. And however much sincerity a person may have, there is always a gap to fill, for we live in the midst of falsehood, and we are always apt to be carried away by this world of falsehood. Therefore we must never think we are sincere enough, and we must always be on our guard against influences which may carry us away from that sincerity which is the bridge between ourselves and our ideal. No study, no meditation is more helpful than sincerity itself.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Niels Bohr

Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed; the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image.

Simone Weil

I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.

Abraham Lincoln

I've always been charmed by houses, and descriptions of them are prominent in my novels. So prominent, in fact, that my editor once pointed out to me that all of my early novels had houses on the covers.