The line is spoken by the Kencyr scrollswoman Kirien in P. C. Hodgell’s fantasy novel Seeker’s Mask (Hypatia Press, 1994), Part VIII, Section 1, page 406 — a citation Quote Investigator verified on paper ↗. Carl Sagan died in 1996; QI found no substantive evidence he ever said or wrote the expression, and the earliest Sagan-tagged postings it located are tweets from 2012.
“That which can be destroyed by the truth should be” P. C. Hodgell, Seeker's Mask (Hypatia Press, 1994), Part VIII, Sec. 1, p. 406. Not Carl Sagan. Via Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Carl Sagan. Use the credit shown above instead.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the world of P. C. Hodgell — American fantasy novelist & former academic. Theme: "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
Where the line actually comes from
Work
Seeker’s Mask
First published
1994 — Hypatia Press, Eugene, Oregon (third novel of the Chronicles of the Kencyrath)
Located at
Part VIII, Section 1, page 406 — verified on paper by Quote Investigator
Speaker
Kirien, a Kencyr scrollswoman, replying to Jame
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
Seeker’s Mask, Pt. VIII §1, p. 406
Quoted at length only in QI’s article ↗, which reproduces the surrounding exchange: Jame raises the possibility that the truth can sometimes destroy, and Kirien answers with this sentence. The novel is in copyright, so only the saying itself is reproduced here.
Into circulation — Eliezer Yudkowsky quotes it as the opening of the second virtue in Twelve Virtues of Rationality ↗, with the credit written out: “P. C. Hodgell said”.
2012 — QI dates the Sagan credit to Twitter ↗: a 22 February 2012 tweet placing Sagan’s name beside the saying near a documentary link, then a 28 December 2012 tweet posting the reworded version as his outright.
Seeker’s Mask was first published in 1994 and its author is living, so the novel is under US copyright — nothing here is public domain. The single sentence is reproduced as a short quotation for identification and comment; the surrounding dialogue is not reproduced.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
The misattribution
This is a clean case of a name being attached to a saying it had nothing to do with — and then the saying being rewritten to suit the name.
✕
The popular creditCarl Sagan No evidence
Quote Investigator ↗ states it “has located no substantive evidence that Carl Sagan said or wrote this expression” and concludes the linkage to him was spurious. Sagan died in 1996; the earliest Sagan-adjacent posting QI documents is a tweet of 22 February 2012 that placed his name near the saying alongside a documentary link, followed by an unambiguous misattribution in a tweet of 28 December 2012.
~
The circulating wording“If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth” Reworded
The version that travels under Sagan’s name is a longer rewrite, not Hodgell’s sentence. Wikiquote lists it under Misattributed ↗ on Sagan’s page and gives the Hodgell line beneath it.
✕
How it spreadEliezer Yudkowsky’s rationality writing Correctly credited
Not a culprit — a vector. Twelve Virtues of Rationality ↗ quotes the line under the second virtue, relinquishment, and says plainly “P. C. Hodgell said”. The essay made the sentence famous with the right name on it; the wrong name was bolted on later.
The sentence is a piece of dialogue, not an aphorism handed down from a lectern. In Seeker’s Mask, Jame suggests that the truth can sometimes destroy; Kirien — a scrollswoman, and by Hodgell’s own description driven to lay bare the truth regardless of what it costs — answers that that which can be destroyed by the truth should be. It reads like a maxim because the character means it as one.
Its journey out of fantasy publishing ran through rationalist writing: Eliezer Yudkowsky uses it as the opening of the second virtue, relinquishment, in Twelve Virtues of Rationality ↗, and he names Hodgell there. The mis-credit came later and from somewhere else. QI’s reconstruction ↗ is that a 22 February 2012 tweet put Sagan’s name next to the saying near a documentary link, and by a 28 December 2012 tweet the saying was simply being posted as his. Proximity is one of the commonest ways a quotation changes hands.
A fantasy novelist’s scholar says it to a friend in 1994. Sagan’s name only arrives in 2012, on Twitter.
A note on the two wordings
Hodgell’s novel has “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be”. The form that circulates under Sagan’s name is usually longer and rebuilt: “If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.” Wikiquote files that longer version under Misattributed ↗ and points back to the Hodgell line. So the Sagan-tagged text is not merely mis-credited — it is also not the wording anyone actually wrote.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
b. 1951 · American fantasy novelist & former academic
Patricia Christine Hodgell (born 1951) is an American fantasy novelist and short-story writer, and a former academic. Since God Stalk (1982) she has been building the long-running Chronicles of the Kencyrath sequence, which reached Deathless Gods in 2022; Seeker’s Mask (1994) is the third book in it. Her scholar-characters argue about knowledge and what it costs — which is exactly the register this line comes out of, rather than any popular-science broadcast.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Cite this source
P. C. Hodgell, Seeker’s Mask (Eugene, OR: Hypatia Press, 1994), Part VIII, Section 1, p. 406. Citation verified on paper and reported in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: That Which Can Be Destroyed By the Truth Should Be,” 13 March 2016.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘That which can be destroyed by the truth should be’?” Last verified 10 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/that-which-can-be-destroyed-by-the-truth-should-be/