Reality - What is it?

The aide [to George W. Bush] said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community?

-- Ron Suskind, "Without a Doubt," New York Times, October 17, 2004

Objective reality - otherwise known as the truth - matters.

-- Justin Raimondo

It’s not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true.

-- Henry Kissinger

What is truth?

-- Pontius Pilate, John 18:38

Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.

Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.

Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.

Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.

Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it.

-- Paul Craig Roberts

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

-- Geroge Orwell

Mendacity is a system we live in. Liquor is one way out an' death's the other.

-- Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Who you gonna believe--me or your lying eyes?

-- Richard Pryor