Truth-Tellers aren’t always palatable:
There is a preference for candy bars.²
The Truth is rarely pure and never simple:
Modern life would be very tedious if it were either,
And modern literature—a complete Impossibility.³
Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams Truths—and fables Histories.⁴
One must strain off what is personal & accidental
In each impression to reach the Pure Fluid:
The essential oil of Truth.⁵
One voice speaking the truth is a
Greater force than fleets & armies—given time—⁶
An ounce of truth benefits as Ripples on a pond.⁷
Truth can never be told so as to be
Understood and not be believ’d.⁸
There’s triumph of the finer mind when
Truth, affronted long—advances calm to
Her Supreme, her God her only throng—⁹
In dealing with Truth—
We are Immortal!¹⁰
¹ Sophocles tr. Theodore Howard Banks, Oedipus the King
² Gwendolyn Brooks, Song for Winnie
³ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
⁴ John Donne, The Dream
⁵ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
⁶ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
⁷ Nikki Giovanni, [Untitled]: (For Margaret Danner)
⁸ William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
⁹ Emily Dickinson, I Died for Beauty
¹⁰ Henry David Thoreau, Walden