Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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.

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

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

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

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

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

Twain, Mark

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

Proverb, Russian

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

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

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

10.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

11.

If you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

12.

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

13.

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

South, Bishop Robert

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Byron, Lord

17.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

18.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

19.

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

Zohar

20.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

21.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

22.

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

Frost, Robert

23.

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

Mcilvanney, William

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Phaedrus

28.

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

29.

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

Thirkell, Angela

30.

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

Watt, James

31.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

32.

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.

33.

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.

34.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

35.

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

Canetti, Elias

36.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Twain, Mark

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

42.

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

Speakes, Larry

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

46.

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

47.

Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically -- for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist -- but then what isn t?

Crisp, Quentin

48.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

49.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

50.

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.