I had always a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right path in life, and proceed it in with confidence.

Truth and reality split apart.

The hard part of intellectual life is separating what is true from what will get you liked.

That there's a difference 'twixt false and true.

And I have always had an especially great desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see my way clearly in my actions, and to go forward with confidence in this life. It is true that, so long as I merely considered the customs of other men, I found hardly anything there about which to be confident, and that I noticed there was about as much diversity as I had previously found among the opinions of philosophers. Thus the greatest profit I derived from this was that, on seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples, I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I little by little freed myself from many errors that can darken our natural light and render us less able to listen to reason. But after I had spent some years thus studying in the book of the world and in trying to gain some experience, I resolved one day to study within myself too and to spend all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths that I should follow.

When you tell the truth, you have nothing to keep track of. The world itself becomes your memory, and if questions arise, you can always point others back to it. You can even reconsider certain facts and honestly change your views. And you can openly discuss your confusion, conflicts, and doubts with all comers. A commitment to the truth is naturally purifying of error.

THE WAY OF TRUTH

When you crave the answer to any divine question,
And are prepared to abandon yourself
To Truth and Time to know it,
You must first train yourself to distinguish
All that is untrue to get to Truth,
And to do so,
Learn to interpret every word and line
With the heart and mind of
A poet.

The language of Light
Can only be decoded by the heart,
And it has a very luminous
Mind and eye of its own.
However, if there is no truth in you,
You will not be able to see or recognize Truth,
So to you, nothing true will ever be
Known.

So learn to use your heart to recognize Truth
By dissecting it with the brightest light
As it was intended to be shone.
This is the only way,
The right way of Truth,
And the only way it
Will ever be
Shown.

"None of us suffers as much as we should, or loves as much as we say. Love is the first lie; wisdom the last. Don't I know that the only way to know evil is through truth? The evil and the good know themselves only by giving up their secret face to face. The true good who meets the true evil (Holy Mother of Mercy! are there any such?) learns for the first time how to accept neither; the face of the one tells the face of the other the half of the story that both forgot. "To be utterly innocent," he went on, "would be to be utterly unknown, particularly to oneself.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Truth is simple and available to all: why do you complicate? Truth is loving and lovable. It includes all, accepts all, purifies all.

It is untruth that is difficult and a source of trouble. It always wants, expects, demands. Being false, it is empty, always in search of confirmation and reassurance. It is afraid of and avoids inquiry. It identifies itself with any support, however weak and momentary. Whatever it gets, it loses and asks for more.

Most of us avoid telling the truth because it’s uncomfortable. We’re afraid of the consequences — making others feel uncomfortable, hurting their feelings, or risking their anger. And yet, when we don’t tell the truth, and others don’t tell us the truth, we can’t deal with matters from a basis in reality. We’ve all heard the phrase that “the truth will set you free.” And it will. The truth allows us to be free to deal with the way things are, not the way we imagine them to be or hope them to be or might manipulate them to be with our lies. The truth also frees up our energy. It takes energy to withhold the truth, keep a secret, or keep up an act.

Who can distinguish darkness from the soul?

For only as truth is substituted for the shadows of doubt and fear and distrust that now impel man to turn against himself — only as truth is discovered and expressed — can we be truly free.

We must know the truth; and we must avoid error, — these are our first and great commandments as would-be knowers; but they are not two ways of stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws. Although it may indeed happen that when we believe the truth A, we escape as an incidental consequence from believing the falsehood B, it hardly ever happens that by merely disbelieving B we necessarily believe A. We may in escaping B fall into believing other falsehoods, C or D, just as bad as B; or we may escape B by not believing anything at all, not even A.