The truth is rarely pure and never simple
A little life, a little death
ALGERNON:
…go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?JACK:
My dear Algy, I don’t know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.ALGERNON:
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!JACK:
That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.by Oscar Wilde
(16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900)
from from The Importance of Being Earnest; A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
image – llamnudds
More Earnestness: Favorite Truth Quotes
- A truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided
by Herman Hesse - Truth can be arrived at only through the untrammeled contest among differing opinions
by Nelson Mandela - It’s our task to seek out something with truth for us
by Jane Hamilton - Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also
by Carl Jung - Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth
Henry David Thoreau
March 15th, 2010 at 3:42 am
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple” …
“…rarely pure…” – perhaps; “…never simple” ? – I beg to differ…