Uncomfortable Truths Quotes

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

If we look too closely at many historical figures, we won't like what we see.

It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.

I'm not interested in worrying in if I make people uncomfortable. I'm interested in stopping women and children dying - that's what I'm interested in.

I don't think people like to read about themselves or about others as they really are. It would be too horrifying.

I live in Palm Beach, where no one wants to hear bad news.

If we put the camera on ourselves, our friends and neighbors, we'll come up with some scary stuff.

Charity conceals a stupid cruelty, because it is not courageous enough to face unpleasant facts.

I think the job of a good journalist, especially in Washington, is to create discomfort, and I think for a certain class of people, and for whom life is quite comfortable, I've created discomfort. So I take that as a badge of honor.

One of the drawbacks to life is that it contains moments when one is compelled to tell the truth.

You make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable. Of course when you're a candidate's wife and when you're first lady and the first African-American first lady to boot, that is very, very hard to do.

Hunger and homelessness aren't things we always want to talk about.

Geese are but Geese tho' we may think 'em Swans; and Truth will be Truth tho' it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful.

What ails the truth is that it is mainly uncomfortable, and often dull. The human mind seeks something more amusing, and more caressing.

We don’t like to face unpleasant reality. We want our leaders to tell us what we want to hear …. You cannot manipulate reality. Reality will real its ugly head

Republicans don't like people to talk about depressions. You can hardly blame them for that. You remember the old saying: Don't talk about rope in the house where somebody has been hanged.

Society sometimes discovers facts that society has a hard time getting used to.

Traveling, I am finding, teaches you a lot of things about yourself. For instance, I never thought myself to be the kind of person who pees into a mostly empty bottle of Bluefin energy drink while driving through South Carolina at seventy-seven miles per hour - but in face I am that kind of person.

Growing up in a school that was majority white, my understanding of the world was that I was different but that differences shouldn't be talked about because it's uncomfortable.

Pretending that there are no choices to be made - reading only books, for example, which are cheery and safe and nice - is a prescription for disaster for the young.

Nothing cuts deeper than when another person says exactly what you're afraid to say out loud.

Knowledge is a beautiful thing, but there are a few things I wish I didn't know.

At any given moment, there is a sort of all pervading orthodoxy, a general tacit agreement not to discuss large and uncomfortable facts.

Deep experience is never peaceful.

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.