Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Merlin

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

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

Mcilvanney, William

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

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

This is the punishment of a liar: he is not believed, even when he speaks the truth.

Talmud, The

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.

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

10.

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

Frost, Robert

11.

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

Proust, Marcel

12.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

13.

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

Szilard, Leo

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

22.

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

Kant, Immanuel

23.

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

24.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

25.

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

Merlin

26.

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

27.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

28.

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.

29.

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

Speakes, Larry

30.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

31.

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

Voltaire

32.

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

Mencken, H. L.

33.

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

Phaedrus

34.

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

Williams, Tennessee

35.

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

Byron, Lord

36.

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.

37.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

38.

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

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.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

41.

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

42.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

43.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

44.

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''

45.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

46.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

47.

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

48.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

49.

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

50.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich