Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Nietzsche, Friedrich

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

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

Aristotle

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.

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

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

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

Canetti, Elias

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

Merlin

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

10.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

11.

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

Antrim, Minna

12.

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

Frost, Robert

13.

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

Talmud, The

14.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

15.

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.

16.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

17.

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

Byron, Lord

18.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

19.

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

Feather, William

20.

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

Epictetus

21.

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

Proust, Marcel

22.

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

Phaedrus

23.

He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

Greene, Graham

24.

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

Proverb, Russian

25.

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

Haig, Alexander

26.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

27.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

28.

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

Twain, Mark

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

32.

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

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.

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

35.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

36.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

37.

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

38.

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.

39.

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

Greene, Graham

40.

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

41.

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

Homer

42.

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

43.

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

Twain, Mark

44.

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

45.

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

Speakes, Larry

46.

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

47.

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

Watt, James

48.

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

49.

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

Twain, Mark

50.

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

South, Bishop Robert