’Tis not enough your counsel shall be true;
Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.
Without good breeding, truth is disapproved;
That only makes superior sense beloved.
Truth needs no flowers of speech.
Pope.
When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;
But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proofs to pass her down.
Churchill.
All truth is precious, if not all divine,
And what dilates the powers must needs refine.
Cowper.
Verily there is nothing so false, that a sparkle of truth is not in it.
Tupper.