Skip to content

Truth is one, but error proliferates. Man tracks it down and cuts it up into little pieces hoping to turn it into grains of truth. But the ultimate atom will always essentially be an error, a miscalculation.

— René Daumal The Lie of the Truth (1938)

Another quote →

Topics

Truth

More quotes by René Daumal

Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth.

The Lie of the Truth (1938)

Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety.

Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable.

A Night of Serious Drinking (1938)

You cannot always stay on the summits. You have to come down again . . .

Mount Analogue (1952)

These are no doubt more methodical and complete, but are intelligible only after a little preliminary experience. The entire aim of these notes is to help the beginner acquire this preliminary experience a little faster.

All René Daumal quotes →

You may also like

You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

Julian Assange

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Socrates

I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

Edward Teller

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.

Ulysses S. Grant Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: René Daumal (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.