Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true.

- Canetti, Elias

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

Greene, Graham

If a lie is repeated often enough all the dumb jackasses in the world not only get to believe it, they even swear by it.

Franklin, Billy Boy

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

When lying, be emphatic and indignant, thus behaving like your children.

Feather, William

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Simon, Paul

Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forbearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that -- being what it is -- it falls so short of in fact and in deed.

Luce, Clare Boothe

Some lies are so well disguised to resemble truth, that we should be poor judges of the truth not to believe them.

10.

Liars are the cause of all the sins and crimes in the world.

Epictetus

11.

One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

12.

Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity, do not easily resume life.

Steiner, George

13.

Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers, life would become a mere syllogism and hence too metallic to be borne.

Mencken, H. L.

14.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

15.

If you do not wish to be lied to, do not ask questions. If there were no questions, there would be no lies.

Traven, B.

16.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual.

Jefferson, Thomas

17.

A lie with a purpose is one of the worst kind, and the most profitable.

Dunne, Finley Peter

18.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

19.

Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.

Belloc, Hilaire

21.

I would dodge, not lie, in the national interest.

Speakes, Larry

22.

One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.

Miller, Henry

23.

Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.

Proust, Marcel

24.

The middle of the road is where the white line is -- and that's the worst place to drive.

Frost, Robert

25.

When the world has got hold of a lie, it is astonishing how hard it is to kill it. You beat it over the head, till it seems to have given up the ghost, and behold! the next day it is as healthy as ever.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

26.

I detest the man who hides one thing in the depth of his heart and speaks forth another.

Homer

27.

You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

Thatcher, Margaret

28.

Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.

Proust, Marcel

29.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

30.

Never to lie is to have no lock to your door, you are never wholly alone.

Bowen, Elizabeth

31.

This is the punishment of a liar: he is not believed, even when he speaks the truth.

Talmud, The

32.

As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.

Wilde, Oscar

33.

I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.

Voltaire

34.

A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.

Twain, Mark

35.

Where lies are easily admitted, the father of lies is not easily kept out. Source unknown A great leader molds public opinion, a wise leader listens to it.

36.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

37.

Truth will lose its credit, if delivered by a person that has none.

South, Bishop Robert

38.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

Aristotle

39.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

Churchill, Winston

40.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one's self on lies and fables.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

42.

He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

Greene, Graham

43.

Don't lie if you don't have to.

Szilard, Leo

44.

The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it.

Antrim, Minna

45.

Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death. I can work out a good character much faster than anyone can lie me out of it

Beecher, Lyman

46.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

47.

No man lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

48.

When you rationalize, you do just that. You make rational lies.

49.

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade.

Byron, Lord

50.

No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.

Ruskin, John