The real test of the truth is how knowing it changes you.
From Taking Everything into Account, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
A man on the bench by the library spent an hour this morning telling his friend that the bridge closing was a scandal, and he had the dates and the numbers and the name of the man who signed it. All of it was true. Then he went home the same way he always goes, which takes him over that bridge, and he will do it again tomorrow. For years I thought the hard part was finding out whether a thing was so; I collected facts the way Switch collects acorns he never digs up again. The real test of the truth is how knowing it changes you. I have known since spring that the cat on the corner lot cannot climb the far maple, and I still will not perch in it.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- We confuse the fabric a person wears with the fiber he is made of.
- A dozen confident steps are not the match of one taken fearfully.
- Courage is the fear that takes one step forward.
- A glimpse of the eternal inspires a lifetime of courage.
- The unvarnished truth can give quite a shellacking.
- The truth can be inconvenient and people hate to be inconvenienced.