Quote #1
Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.
–Emily Dickinson
This quote is from the letters of Emily Dickinson to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (August 16, 1870). Besides this notion being an important theme in Dickinson’s work, the quote feels especially relevant today. We have entered a period in history where truth is treated more like a commodity than it is a standard to be upheld for its own sake. When I say commodity, what I mean is something that is sold to us, not necessarily for its own sake, but for the sake of achieving some selfish goal on the behalf of the purveyor. In other words, truth has often become something akin to “fake news,” to quote a famous practitioner.