HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · justice as a virtue · the passions and the emotions · duty, conscience, and obligation · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · truth as relations of ideas vs reality · truth as common property · the nature and attributes of God · spiritual doubt · sin, guilt, and repentance · scripture and its interpretation · philosophy versus opinion
Usually: argument (4) · exhortation (4) · reflection (2) · detachment (2) · indignation (2) · narrative (1) · crisis of belief (1) · the test or trial (1) · curiosity (1) · praise (1)
“The first and most considerable circumstance requisite to render truth agreeable, is the genius and capacity, which is employed in its invention and discovery.” David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature · insight
“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.” Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral · insight
“Truth, truth, thou art the great preservative! Let free air into the mind, and the pestilence cannot lurk in any corner.” Margaret Fuller, Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Volume I · precept
“Unless ye believe ye cannot understand: and unless ye be humble as children, ye not only will not, but ye can not believe.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inqui · precept
Augustine rejects coercive claims that Moses meant only one view, arguing that truth is not private property; people who insist otherwise should not be proud, since loving what is true should be common to all.
not here mentioned), which this so great man saw in his mind, when he uttered these words, I doubt not but that he saw it truly, and expressed it aptly. Let no man harass me then, by saying, Moses thought not as you say, but as I say: for if he should ask me, "How know you that Moses thought that which you infer out of his words?" I ought to take it in good part, and would answer perchance as I have above, or someth…
In introducing curiosity, Hume claims truth is loved because of mental capacity and difficulty in discovering it, distinguishing truth about relations of ideas from truth about conformity to real existence.
with a small variation, which it is not necessary to give any particular account of. It is for this reason I have all along confined myself to the principal passion. The same care of avoiding prolixity is the reason why I wave the examination of the will and direct passions, as they appear in animals; since nothing is more evident, than that they are of the same nature, and excited by the same causes as in human cre…
Socrates distinguishes lovers of truth as lovers of wisdom rather than lovers of opinion, grounding the difference in whether one seeks what is true in each thing.
I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true. But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. Assuredly.
The Wanderer, after relentless questioning and lack of divine guidance, portrays an era of unbelief, yet insists he still loves truth and duty even while doubting God’s existence.
our stronghold: there brandishing our frying-pan, as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease on the fat things he has provided for his Elect!" Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, as so many have done, shouting question after question into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, and receive no Answer but an Echo. It is all a grim Desert, this once-fair world of his; wherein is heard only the howli…
The passage emphasizes Margaret’s love of truth, quoting her journal prayers and maxims about “truth” as preservative, and includes an anecdote from Boston at the Academy of Music where she gently rebukes disruptive listeners.
a long and deep conversation, happy in its candor. Truth, truth, thou art the great preservative! Let free air into the mind, and the pestilence cannot lurk in any corner.' And she uses the following language in an earnest letter to another friend:-- 'My own entire sincerity, in every passage of life, gives me a right to expect that I shall be met by no unmeaning phrases or attentions.' * * * …
He argues that child-like humility at the start makes truthful learning possible, distinguishes humility-driven interests in truth from ego-driven desire for distinction, and teaches belief as the seed that grows into understanding.
common interest of *all* men it must needs concern the very *essentials* of my being, and because these essentials, as existing in *me*, are especially intrusted to my particular charge. Widely different from this social and truth-attracted bias, different both in its nature and its effects, is the interest connected with the desire of *distinguishing* yourself from other men, in order to be distinguished by them. H…
Bacon argues that people can love lies as well as truth, praising truth as clear and liberating for mind, charity, and providence, and warning that truth without pride still requires pity.
Of Truth WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the a…