Truth

Truth is most often used to mean in accord with fact or reality or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal.

The opposite of truth is falsehood, which, correspondingly, can also take on a logical, factual, or ethical meaning. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in several contexts, including philosophy and religion. Many human activities depend upon the concept, which is assumed rather than a subject of discussion, including science, law, and everyday life.

Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars and philosophers. Language and words are a means by which humans convey information to one another and the method used to recognize a "truth" is termed a criterion of truth. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth: what things are truthbearers capable of being true or false; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective or objective, relative or absolute.

Many religions consider perfect knowledge of all truth about all things (omniscience) to be an attribute of a divine or supernatural being.

Read more about Truth:  Nomenclature, Orthography, and Etymology, Major Theories of Truth, In Medicine and Psychiatry, In Religion: Omniscience

Famous quotes containing the word truth:

    Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The truth is the river flows into the canyon
    Of Ceasing-to-Question-What-Doesn’t-Concern-Us,
    As sooner or later we have to cease somewhere.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    I feel that you will not only be the making of my happiness, but also of my fortunes or success in life. The truth is I never did half try to be anything, or do anything. There was no motive ... and so I have lived, not an idle, but a useless sort of life. Hereafter I hope all that will be quite changed.... I shall have purpose and steadiness to keep ever doing, looking to your happiness and approval as my best reward.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)