John Ralston Saul Quotes
I would remind you...that Socrates was executed not for saying what things were or should be, but for seeking practical indications of where some reasonable approximation of truth might be. He was executed not for his megalomania or grandiose propositions or certitudes, but for stubbornly doubting the absolute truths of others.
Quotes to Explore
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I couldn't tell the truth if my life depended on it.
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My friends seem much more excited about my doing Anastasia than Brainstorm... and to tell you the truth, I feel the same way.
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When I was young in L.A. and I couldn't get into clubs or restaurants, I would call imitating celebrities and get a table, and it would work often. I was either Stallone or Mickey Rourke: 'This is Sly. I may be late, but my buddy Hank will be there early.'
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It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
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Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
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Back when I was growing up, getting caught with a copy of 'Creepy,' 'Eerie' or 'Vampirella' was almost as bad as your parents finding out you were reading 'Playboy.'
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As someone who specializes in deception, I'll tell you this much: When someone insistently implores, 'Believe me,' don't. Pleading 'believe me' or 'trust me' - insisting to people that you are telling the truth - is a tell-tale sign that you probably aren't.
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At first, I did have that thought, like, 'Oh crap, what are we going to do after?' Then I realized 'Girl in a Country Song' was an honest, truthful song, and we were telling our truth, and that's all we have to do - write songs that are true and tell our stories.
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To tell the truth, fairytales have never gone out of style. They have been told and retold for thousands of years, finding new shapes and structures with each new generation of tellers.
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I don't want to be disrespectful to people who are incredible at their craft, but the truth is, if I didn't get paid for it, I wouldn't act. The best-paying jobs are usually the worst films. You're a very small cog in a big machine.
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One of the misperceptions that exists in the Muslim world, which needs to be fixed, is the perception that Muslims in America are - are - are living in - in very, very, very bad circumstances. They cannot practice religion freely. It is not the truth at all. The fact is, we are practicing. We fast, we pray, we do our prayers.
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To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.
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Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
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God's truth is helped by no man's ignorance.
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Tests that sugar-coat the truth only set up our kids to fail in worse ways down the road.
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During a large disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, warnings get hopelessly jumbled. The truth is that, for warnings to work, it's not enough for them to be delivered. They must also overcome that human tendency to pause; they must trigger a series of effective actions, mobilizing the informal networks that we depend on in a crisis.
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Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.
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Moralistic is not moral. And as for truth - well, it's like brown - it's not in the spectrum. Truth is so generic.
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What I do have to get across is the truth of the moment within the given scene. It's my job, as a director and screenwriter, to create the environment in which all those moments will come together eventually.
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It is so little true that martyrs offer any support to the truth of a cause that I am inclined to deny that any martyr has ever had anything to do with the truth at all.
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Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes; this is partly because it gets unobstructed hold of the hearer’s mind without his being distracted by secondary thoughts, and partly because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or deceived by the arts of rhetoric, but that the whole effect is got from the thing itself.
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Speaking the truth, once you have started it, is too exhilarating to draw back.
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You'll see it when you believe it.
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I would remind you...that Socrates was executed not for saying what things were or should be, but for seeking practical indications of where some reasonable approximation of truth might be. He was executed not for his megalomania or grandiose propositions or certitudes, but for stubbornly doubting the absolute truths of others.
