Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Epictetus

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Mencken, H. L.

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

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

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

Watt, James

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

Greene, Graham

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

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

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

Canetti, Elias

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

10.

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

Haig, Alexander

11.

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

Twain, Mark

12.

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

Proust, Marcel

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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

Steiner, George

16.

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

Epictetus

17.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

18.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

19.

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

20.

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

Voltaire

21.

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

Zohar

22.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

23.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

24.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

25.

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

South, Bishop Robert

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

30.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

31.

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

Aristotle

32.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

33.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

34.

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

Kant, Immanuel

35.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

36.

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

37.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

38.

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

Merlin

39.

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

Proust, Marcel

40.

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

Feather, William

41.

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

Proverb, Russian

42.

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

43.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

44.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

45.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

46.

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

47.

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

Phaedrus

48.

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

49.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

50.

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

Homer