partisan of truth

The poet looks over a broad terrain and over vast stretches of time. He makes observations on the problems of his own time, to be sure, but he is a partisan only in the sense that he is a partisan of the truth. He arouses doubts and uncertainties and brings everything into question.

—Zbigniew Herbert, quoted in “Objects Don’t Lie: Talk with a Polish Poet” by Stephen Stepanchev, The New Leader, Vol. 51, August 1968, No. 16.