Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Cicero, Marcus T.

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude. Also, a tactical misrepresentation.

Haig, Alexander

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

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his mouth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator.

Stevenson, Robert Louis

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

Voltaire

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

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

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

10.

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

Aristotle

11.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

12.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

13.

Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.

Mcilvanney, William

14.

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

Greene, Graham

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Frost, Robert

19.

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.

20.

Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

21.

Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man.

Rowland, Helen

22.

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

Twain, Mark

23.

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

24.

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

Proverb, Russian

25.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

28.

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

29.

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

30.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

31.

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

32.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

33.

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

34.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

35.

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

36.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

37.

If you wish to strengthen a lie, mix a little truth in with it.

Zohar

38.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

39.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

40.

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

Speakes, Larry

41.

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

Greene, Graham

42.

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

Epictetus

43.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

44.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

45.

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

Szilard, Leo

46.

A lie will easily get you out of a scrape, and yet, strangely and beautifully, rapture possesses you when you have taken the scrape and left out the lie.

Montague, C. E.

47.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

48.

I do myself a greater injury in lying that I do him of whom I tell a lie.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

49.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

50.

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