Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar

The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, ch. 5 (1860)
    (Source)

The chapter originally appeared as "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table: What He Said, What He Heard, and What He Saw," Atlantic Monthly, (1859-05).