Progress consists, not in the increase of truth, but in freeing it from its wrappings. The truth is obtained like gold, not by letting it grow bigger, but by washing off from it everything that isn’t gold.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher

Tolstoy’s Diaries, Vol. 2 (ed., tr. Christian)

Alt trans: "Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."