Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Kant, Immanuel

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Steiner, George

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

Szilard, Leo

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

Byron, Lord

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

Feather, William

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

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

10.

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

Voltaire

11.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

12.

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

Phaedrus

13.

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.

14.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

15.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

16.

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.

17.

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

Crowley, Aleister

18.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

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.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

21.

Burning lies led to my silent cries Keeping it inside I've got everything to hide. lustful desire, a burning fire You are the flame, You are to blame. Beautiful light deliver me from fright dreams full of lust. Or is the dream dreaming us? PHYSICAL PAIN don't call me insane. I don't want to be dead but all beautiful colors bleed to red

22.

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

23.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

24.

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

Merlin

25.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

26.

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

Proust, Marcel

27.

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

Antrim, Minna

28.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

29.

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

Twain, Mark

30.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

31.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

32.

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

South, Bishop Robert

33.

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

Proverb, Russian

34.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

35.

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

36.

If you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don't sound good to you, it won't sound good to anybody.

Paige, Leroy ''Satchel''

37.

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

Homer

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Speakes, Larry

41.

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

Thirkell, Angela

42.

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

43.

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

Epictetus

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.

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.

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

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Frost, Robert

50.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De