Henri Frederic Amiel Quotes

Stupidity is active in every direction, and can dress up in all the clothes of truth. Truth, on the other hand, has for every occasion only one dress and one path, and is always at a disadvantage.

There are moments when very little truth would be enough to shape opinion. One might be hated at extremely low cost.

Error is always more busy than truth.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

If you understand everything, you must be misinformed.

A misconception remains a misconception, even when it is shared by the majority of people.

Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.

Whatever is almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is more likely to lead astray.

If you keep saying two plus two equals five over and over again, then that is what people are going to think. Maybe it does equal five if we keep changing the definition of what's normal and what's right and what's wrong.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.

Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

Errors, to be dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

But what if our intelligence is wrong?

The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are intentionally bad.

The great enemy of the truth is often not the lie ... but the myth.

Selective truth

The Top Lie of 2010!

Belief and seeing: They are both often wrong.

A lie can be half way round the world before the truth gets its boots on.

Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.