What does the truth matter? Haven't we mothers all given our sons a taste for lies, lies which from the cradle upwards lull them, reassure them, send them to sleep: lies as soft and warm as a breast!

Bernanos, Georges

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.

It is easier to gather up a bag of loose feathers than to round up or head off a single lie.

18.

In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

19.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

Cicero, Marcus T.

20.

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

21.

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

Speakes, Larry

22.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

23.

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

24.

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

Voltaire

25.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won t.

Twain, Mark

26.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

27.

Whoever is detected in a shameful fraud is ever after not believed even if they speak the truth.

Phaedrus

28.

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

29.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

30.

Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen.

Mailer, Norman

31.

The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.

Wilde, Oscar

32.

There is no lie that a man will not believe; and there is no man who does not believe many lies; and there is no man who believes only lies.

Sterling, John

33.

In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

34.

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

Szilard, Leo

35.

With lies you may go ahead in the world, but you can never go back.

Proverb, Russian

36.

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

37.

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death's the other.

Williams, Tennessee

38.

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

39.

Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.

Milosz, Ceslaw

40.

By a lie, a man...annihilates his dignity as a man.

Kant, Immanuel

41.

The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.

Mencken, H. L.

42.

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.

Twain, Mark

43.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

44.

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

Plato

45.

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

46.

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

Twain, Mark

47.

A lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

Watt, James

48.

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

Byron, Lord

49.

When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.