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.
The truth Has to be melted out of our stubborn lives By suffering. Nothing speaks the truth, Nothing tells us how things really are, Nothing forces us to know What we do not want to know Except pain. And this is how the gods declare their love.
Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.
For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.
I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me I consider that this is taking an unfair advantage.
There are certain times when most people are in a disposition of being informed, and 'tis incredible what a vast good a little truth might do, spoken in such seasons.
Could truth perhaps be a woman who has reasons for not permitting her reasons to be seen? Could her name perhaps be--to speak Greek--Baubo?... Oh, those Greeks! They understood how to live: to do that it is necessary to stop bravely at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore the appearance, to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! Those Greeks were superficial--out of profundity!