“One half of his business is the discovery of the truth, and the other half its representation.”

Defining the twin scientific and artistic tasks of the historian · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Craft
• Truth

“The historian should use ‘scientific’ methods to arrive at a ‘faithful representation of the life of the time.”

Expressing his belief that historical scholarship should reconstruct the past faithfully through disciplined research · Historical writing and teaching

• Evidence
• History
• Truth

“Honesty is the best poverty.”

On the value of truth over material wealth · Letter (commonly attributed)

• Honesty
• Truth
• Values

“The yachts do not sink but go on with the race while only in the imagination are they seen to founder.”

Imagination reveals a deeper truth beneath surface appearances · Note to Henry W. Wells, 27 July 1955

• Appearance
• Imagination
• Truth

“To tell the truth, I myself never quite feel that I know what I am talking about — if I did, and when I do, the thing written seems nothing to me.”

Creative uncertainty as a condition of authentic expression · Letter to Harriet Monroe, 14 October 1913

• Truth
• Uncertainty
• Writing

“To be a poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in a word, the good which exists in the relation between existence and perception, and between perception and expression.”

Defining poetic perception as an encounter with truth, beauty and the relations between things. · Essay, A Defence of Poetry

• Beauty
• Poetry
• Truth

“The greatest errors of our lives often arise because we mistake what we desire for what is true.”

Warning against allowing desire to distort judgement. · Journal

• Desire
• Judgement
• Truth

“There are no liars like our own sensations.”

A compact warning against treating powerful feelings as infallible evidence. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Emotion
• Perception
• Truth

“What they tell the public in print of their experiences is one thing, and what they tell their friends by word of mouth is another.”

Noting the difference between public accounts and private experience. · Speech, Some Aspects of Travel, 1914

• Communication
• Travel
• Truth

“That record must satisfy at all costs to the word and to the man behind the word.”

Putting the integrity of the literary record above personal comfort. · Speech, Literature, 1906

• Integrity
• Truth
• Writing

“There is no room, and the world insists that there shall be no room, for pity, for mercy, for respect, for fear, or even for loyalty between man and his fellow-man, when the record of the Tribe comes to be written.”

Arguing for ruthless honesty when literature records an age. · Speech, Literature, 1906

• History
• Truth
• Writing

“There are many liars in the world, but there are no liars like our own sensations.”

Warning that intense feelings can give a misleading account of reality. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Emotion
• Perception
• Truth

“On such occasions very little truth is spoken. I will try not to depart from the convention.”

A characteristically dry opening before offering more serious advice. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Advice
• Humour
• Truth

“Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till someone had told a story.”

Defending storytelling as a means through which human beings discover and communicate truth. · Speech, Fiction, 1926

• Fiction
• Storytelling
• Truth

“The autobiographer cannot be trusted to tell the whole truth, though he may tell nothing but the truth.”

A subtle observation about the limitations of self-knowledge and self-presentation · Remark on biography

• Biography
• Self
• Truth

“There are but two biographers who can tell the story of a man’s or a woman’s life. One is the person himself or herself; the other is the Recording Angel.”

Distinguishing between the necessarily incomplete human account and divine knowledge · Remark on biography

• Biography
• Mortality
• Truth

“I should like to see any man’s biography with corrections and emendations by his ghost. We don’t know each other’s secrets quite so well as we flatter ourselves we do.”

A witty warning about the inevitable limitations of biographical portraiture · Remark on biography

• Biography
• Privacy
• Truth

“There are many truths that come out by immersion in the atmosphere of experience.”

A striking image of experience gradually revealing truths that cannot simply be learned intellectually · Autobiographical Notes

• Experience
• Learning
• Truth

“A person discovers the truth of things only by testing them in action.”

Original: Den Menschen erkennt man nur am Tun. — Character and conviction become meaningful when expressed through conduct rather than words. · Maxims and Reflections (German)

• Action
• Character
• Truth

“We must always repeat the truth, because error is also continually preached around us, not by individuals alone but by the multitude.”

Original: Man muß das Wahre immer wiederholen, weil auch der Irrtum um uns her immer wieder gepredigt wird, und zwar nicht von einzelnen, sondern von der Masse. — Truth requires repetition because collective opinion can give error the appearance of authority. · Conversation with Johann Peter Eckermann, 16 December 1828 (German)

• Communication
• Society
• Truth

“Through constant conflict he distinguished the true from the false, held fast to the former and treated the latter without consideration.”

Original: Durch beständigen Konflikt unterschied er das Wahre vom Falschen, hielt am ersten fest und verhielt sich gegen das andere rücksichtslos. — Goethe portrays discernment as something formed through sustained confrontation with opposing ideas. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years (German)

• Conflict
• Judgement
• Truth

“A new truth has nothing more damaging to it than an old error.”

Original: Einer neuen Wahrheit ist nichts schädlicher als ein alter Irrtum. — Established misconceptions can be more resistant to truth than simple ignorance. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, Makaria’s Archive (German)

• Change
• Error
• Truth

“The false has the advantage that one can always talk about it; the true must be used at once, otherwise it is gone.”

Original: Das Falsche hat den Vorteil, daß man immer darüber schwätzen kann, das Wahre muß gleich genutzt werden, sonst ist es nicht da. — Truth demands practical engagement, whereas falsehood can survive indefinitely as mere talk. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, Makaria’s Archive (German)

• Action
• Truth
• Words

“One is never deceived; one deceives oneself.”

Original: Man wird nie betrogen, man betrügt sich selbst. — The aphorism places self-deception at the heart of many experiences of being misled by others. · Maxims and Reflections (German)

• Judgement
• Self Deception
• Truth