On Truth (1800-1849)

“The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.” (John Keats. [letter to George and Thomas Keats] 1817)

"[...] all knowledge, and especially the weightiest knowledge of the truth, to which only a brief triumph is allotted between the two long periods in which it is condemned as paradoxical or disparaged as trivial." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation", 1819)

"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." (Thomas Jefferson, [Letter to William Roscoe] 1820)

"Mathematics, like dialectics, is an instrument of the inner higher sense, while in practice it is an art like rhetoric. For both of these, nothing has value but form; content is immaterial. Whether mathematics is adding up pennies or guineas, whether rhetoric is defending truth or falsehood, makes no difference to either.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre" ["Reflections in the Spirit of the Wanderers"], 1821)

“Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from the abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies latent among them, like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its whole value: and the precious particles are generally combined with the baser in such a manner that the separation is a task of the utmost difficulty.” (Thomas B Macaulay, “History”, 1828)

"Truth in itself is rarely sufficient to make men act. Hence the step is always long from cognition to volition, from knowledge to ability. The most powerful springs of action in men lie in his emotions." (Carl von Clausewitz, "On War", 1832)

“It is difficult to discriminate the voice of truth from amid the clamour raised by heated partisans.” (Friedrich Schiller, “Schillers Sammtliche Werke”, 1834)

“The most important and lasting truths are the most obvious ones. Nature cheats us with her mysteries, one after another, like a juggler with his tricks; but shews us her plain honest face, without our paying for it.” (William Hazlitt, “Characteristics: In the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims”, 1837)

“In truth, ideas and principles are independent of men; the application of them and their illustration is man's duty and merit.” (Edward Forbes, 1847)