Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Thatcher, Margaret

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

Szilard, Leo

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

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Proust, Marcel

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

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

Frost, Robert

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

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

Twain, Mark

10.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

11.

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

12.

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

13.

It contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with the truth.

Armstrong, Robert

14.

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

15.

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

Homer

16.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

17.

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

Voltaire

18.

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

Mcilvanney, William

19.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

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

Proverb, Russian

21.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

22.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

23.

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

24.

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.

25.

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

Kant, Immanuel

26.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

27.

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

Talmud, The

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.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

30.

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

Watt, James

31.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

32.

In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

33.

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

Haig, Alexander

34.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

35.

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

36.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

37.

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

38.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

39.

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

Steiner, George

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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

Speakes, Larry

42.

A lie will easily get you out of a scrape, and yet, strangely and beautifully, rapture possesses you when you have taken the scrape and left out the lie.

Montague, C. E.

43.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

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

Thirkell, Angela

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Epictetus

48.

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

Phaedrus

49.

They say is often a great liar.