Truth

Conformity to fact or actuality. Veracity. Being in accord with fact or reality. Expressing integrity. Truth is a comprehensive term that in all of its nuances implies accuracy and honesty. Verisimilitude is the quality of having the appearance of truth or reality. A belief of some modernist painters, especially Abstract Expressionists, is that to produce an illusion of depth is dishonest; that a work is more truthful when it declares its inherent flatness. Postmodernists have rejected this notion. Other opposites to truth: counterfeit, fake, forgery, plagiarism, ostentation, and pretentiousness."Truthiness" was coined in 2006 by satirist Stephen Colbert (contemporary American), who defined it as "truth that comes from the gut, not books." Colbert apparently sensed the need for this word when discussing utterances of US President George W. Bush. The dictionary publisher Mirriam-Webster declared "truthiness" Word of the Year for 2006 because this word best summed up the year.Quotes: "Veritas odit moras." (Truth hates delay) Seneca (4 BCE?-65 CE), Roman Stoic philosopher and playwright. Oedipus, line 850. "However indifferent men are to universal truths, they are keen on those that are individual and particular." Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher. "Psychological Remarks," Parerga and Paralipomena, 1851. "A picture is something which requires as much knavery, trickery, and deceit as the perpetration of a crime." Edgar Degas (1834-1917), French Impressionist artist. "TRUTH, n: An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance." Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), American writer. The Cynic's Word Book, also known as The Devil's Dictionary (1906). "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish-born writer. See aestheticism and fin de si?cle. Substitute the expression warranted assertibility for truth. John Dewey (1859-1952), American philosopher. Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938). "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies." Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist. "Picasso Speaks," in The Arts (New York, May 1923; reprinted in Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, 1946). "If there were only one truth, you couldn't paint a hundred canvases on the same theme." Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist. Quoted in: H?l?ne Parmelin, Picasso Says..., "Truth" (1966; translated 1969). "You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer." Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist. Quoted in: Roland Penrose, Picasso: His Life and Work, chapter 13 (1958). "Truth exists. Only falsehood has to be invented." Georges Braque (1882-1963), French painter, in his Pens?es sur l'Art. "Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar, but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth." D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), British writer and painter in Studies in Classic American Literature (1923). "To be an artist, one must . . . never shirk from the truth as he understands it, never withdraw from life." Diego Rivera (1886-1957), Mexican painter. See artist and mural. "The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth." Dan Rather (1931-), television journalist. "The veracity [in photographs] is beginning to go ? it's going like painting, which isn't necessarily about veracity." David Hockney (1937-), English painter and photographer, lives and works in the USA. Quoted by Bernard Weinraub, New York Times, August 15, 2001. See photography, photomontage, and Pop Art. "Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time." Unknown Also see Abstract Expressionism, droit moral, likeness, mirror, mystery, naturalism, problem, realism, and quotations.