Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Proverb, Russian

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

Epictetus

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

Some lies are so well disguised to resemble truth, that we should be poor judges of the truth not to believe them.

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

Williams, Tennessee

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.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

10.

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

Homer

11.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

12.

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

Aristotle

13.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

14.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

15.

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

Szilard, Leo

16.

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

Twain, Mark

17.

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

18.

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

Haig, Alexander

19.

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

Crowley, Aleister

20.

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.

21.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

22.

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

South, Bishop Robert

23.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

24.

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

25.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

26.

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

Canetti, Elias

27.

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

28.

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

Kant, Immanuel

29.

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.

30.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

31.

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

Antrim, Minna

32.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

33.

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

Thirkell, Angela

34.

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

Twain, Mark

35.

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''

36.

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.

37.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

38.

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

39.

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

40.

All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Simon, Paul

41.

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.

42.

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

Zohar

43.

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

Mencken, H. L.

44.

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

45.

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

Mcilvanney, William

46.

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

Greene, Graham

47.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

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.

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

50.

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