Truth

"…life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies…Because the regime is captive to its own lies it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics." Vaclav Havel

"To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, “by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.” Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." Thomas Jefferson

"Hollywood, land of fiction and history revisionism wouldn’t produce a product of truth even if it was profitable; neither would its kissing cousins, the media and the publishing industry." Walter Grant

"The press, or at least most of it, has lost the passion, the outrage, and the sense of mission that once drove reporters to defy authority and tell the truth." Chris Hedges

"The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the 'secrets' which they hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which they do tell us. These are already pre-digested, and then are sicked up as little gobbits of authorised spew. The columns of defence correspondents in the establishment sheets serve as the spittoons" E. P. Thompson

"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness." Hannah Arendt

"What if your eyes and your ability to think critically and independently tell you that all information from the institutions of the state is a lie? What do you do then? Do you trust your own cognitive abilities or blindly follow authority pretending everything can be somehow explained? If your worldview cannot explain what you see with your own eyes, then the problem is probably with your worldview. So, do you change this view or deny it?" David McGowan

"One man who stopped lying could bring down a tyranny." Alexander Solschenizyn

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth." Vladimir Lenin

"There is nothing worse than words of kindness that lie." Juvenal

"There is a tendency not to tell people the plain truth anymore because of fear of their reaction." Michael Kretschmer

"The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to be either half truths or lies." Mario Vargas Llosa

"This is going to be an unpopular truth, especially in the extremely delusional and deceived world we now live in. But the reality is this: none of what is going on outside is getting better. Nothing improves. Everything in our world feels fake. Our food is fake. Our news is fake. Our politicians are fake. Our history is fake. Even our financial system feels fake. And the people on our TV screens, on our phone screens — they’re lying to us, because everything is like a scripted movie. If you want to believe the absolute garbage that is being spoon-fed to us, then that is your prerogative. But I would hope that by now — five years into this very odd new world, this strange reality we’re living in — most of us have started to recognize that something deeper is going on. Something more sinister. Something more… spiritual, even, behind the scenes. I’ve reached a point where I literally don’t believe anything I see anymore. Nothing. Because after the last five years — maybe a bit more — it’s become clear to me that narratives are being pushed. Distractions are being manufactured. And in the end… we are watching a movie." ashleyhays2.0

"A truth can only take effect when the recipient is ready for it. Therefore, it is not the fault of the truth that people are still so full of folly." Christian Morgenstern