Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

- Cocteau, Jean

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

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

Haig, Alexander

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

Watt, James

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

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

Kant, Immanuel

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

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

Merlin

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

10.

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

11.

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

Antrim, Minna

12.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

13.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

14.

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

15.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

16.

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

17.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

18.

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

Frost, Robert

19.

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

Mcilvanney, William

20.

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

Simon, Paul

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

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

24.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Feather, William

28.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

29.

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

30.

Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.

Crowley, Aleister

31.

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

Greene, Graham

32.

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

Szilard, Leo

33.

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

Twain, Mark

34.

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

Williams, Tennessee

35.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

40.

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

41.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

42.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

43.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

44.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

45.

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

46.

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

Epictetus

47.

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.

48.

One of the striking differences between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.

Twain, Mark

49.

If one cannot invent a really convincing lie, it is often better to stick to the truth.

Thirkell, Angela

50.

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

Twain, Mark