For truth to be heard, it must be said with kindness. The things you speak from the heart will not be communicated just because they are clever and true. And thus you should know that if another person is not accepting your words, then it is because of one of two things: either what you think is the truth is not the truth, or you are communicating it without kindness, or both.
The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly; only the lover’s words are heard.
— Thoreau
To speak the truth is the same thing as to sew well, mow deftly or write beautifully. It is something that comes easily only to someone who has sewn a lot, mown a lot or written a lot. Try as you might, you will not do a thing well unless you have already done it many, many times over. And that is why, if you want to speak the truth, you must make a habit of it. And to make it a habit you must speak only the truth in every case, however insignificant it may be.
We are so used to dissembling before others that we oftentimes dissemble before ourselves.
— La Rochefoucauld
In essence, only your own fundamental thoughts possess truth and life, they are the only thoughts whose true meaning you understand. The thoughts of others you get by reading are like scraps of leftover food from someone else’s table or a piece of clothing from a stranger’s shoulder.
— Schopenhauer
If a human being grows timid before the truth and, upon seeing it, does not recognize it and instead continues to suppress within himself the realization that what he had thought to be the truth is actually a lie, then he will never learn what he should do.
The best minds, the lovers of truth, do not care about appropriating the truth. They accept it with gratitude everywhere they come across it, and they do not brand it with someone’s name, because the truth is very old and has already belonged to them for eternity.
— Emerson
Truth cannot make a human being unkind or arrogant. The manifestations of truth are always meek, humble and simple.
