A Quote by Philip Roth

There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
The Bible is a wonderful book. It is the truth about the Truth. It is not the Truth. A sermon taken from the Bible can be a wonderful thing to hear. It is the truth about the truth about the truth. But it is not the truth. There have been many books written about the things contained in the Bible. I have written some myself. They can be quite wonderful to read. They are the truth about the truth about truth about the Truth. But they are NOT the Truth. Only Jesus Christ is the Truth. Sometimes the Truth can be drowned in a multitude of words.
I found that most people don't really want to know the truth. There are plenty of people who want to know the truth on their terms or require that the truth be contained within certain boundaries of comfort. But truth can never be known this way. You have to seek truth from a place of not knowing, and that can be a very threatening place because we think we already know the truth or we are afraid of what the truth might be.
A search for truth seems to me to be full of pitfalls. We all have different understandings of what truth is, and we'll each believe - or we are in danger of each believing - that our truth is the one and only absolute truth, which is why I say it's full of pitfalls.
If people depend on me to be a man of truth, I have to prove again and again and again and again that I am a man of truth. It cannot be that on Monday I am a man of truth, on Tuesday I speak three-quarters truth, Wednesday I speak half-truth, on Thursday I speak one-quarter truth, on Friday I don't speak at all, and on Saturday I can't even think how to speak the truth.
To subvert is not the aim of literature, its value lies in discovering and revealing what is rarely known, little known, thought to be known but in fact not very well known of the truth of the human world. It would seem that truth is the unassailable and most basic quality of literature.
Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn't know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.
In order to be truthful We must do more than speak the truth. We must also hear truth. We must also receive truth. We must also act upon truth. We must also search for truth. The difficult truth Within us and around us. We must devote ourselves to truth. Otherwise we are dishonest And our lives are mistaken. God grant us the strength and the courage To be truthful. Amen
At the very outset I have to tell you that truth is what it is. You cannot mold it, you cannot change it. It is always the same. It has been the same, it is the same, it will be the same. But to say that we know the truth and that we have the truth is really a self-deception. If you had known the absolute truth there would have been no problems and everybody would have said the same thing. There would be no discussions, no arguments, no fights and wars. But when we don't know the absolute truth then we can find out our own mental conceptions as the truth. But this mind is so limited.
Here then is the truth about the Truth; the Truth is not bridge, sturdy to every step, a marvel of bound planks and supports from the known into the unknown, but a surging sea of smashed wood, flotsam and drowning sailors.
Remember, until you become a buddha you have wasted your life. Buddhahood is your flowering, your fragrance. A tree is fulfilled when it blooms, and a man is fulfilled when he releases the fragrance of buddhahood, when he becomes luminous; then he comes to know who he is. In knowing that, all is known. In knowing that, God is known. In knowing that, truth is achieved - you become the truth, and truth liberates. Truth is freedom.
If you are of the truth, if you have learned the truth, if you see the sanctity of the truth, then speak truth. We are not called to be deceivers or liars. God is a God of truth, and His people are called to have an enormously high standard of truth.
When we started, it was based on lies. It's changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You've got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's becoming very confusing.
There is at least one truth to every myth, and it takes one truth to create a lie. Lies can be formed from Truth; however, Truth cannot be formed from lies.
It is not given to man to know the whole Truth. His duty lies in living up to the truth as he sees it, and in doing so, to resort to the purest means, i.e., to non-violence. God alone knows absolute truth. Therefore, I have often said, Truth is God. It follows that man, a finite being, cannot know absolute truth. Nobody in this world possesses absolute truth. This is God's attribute alone. Relative truth is all we know. Therefore, we can only follow the truth as we see it. Such pursuit of truth cannot lead anyone astray.
Truth is rhythmical: if it implies stasis, it is platitude. Truth is syncopated: if it supplies all the terms, there is one term too many. Truth is barbed: if it comforts, it lies. Truth is an armed dancer.
The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speakes he lies.
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