Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

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

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

Watt, James

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

Twain, Mark

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

Canetti, Elias

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

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

Proust, Marcel

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

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

Mencken, H. L.

10.

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

11.

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

Crowley, Aleister

12.

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

Twain, Mark

13.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

14.

Ruskin, John

15.

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

Mcilvanney, William

16.

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

17.

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

Greene, Graham

18.

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

Szilard, Leo

19.

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

20.

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

Feather, William

21.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

22.

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.

23.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

24.

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

25.

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

Greene, Graham

26.

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

27.

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

Voltaire

28.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

29.

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

Epictetus

30.

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

Phaedrus

31.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

32.

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.

33.

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

34.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

35.

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

Twain, Mark

36.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

37.

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

38.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

39.

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

Williams, Tennessee

40.

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

Simon, Paul

41.

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

42.

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.

43.

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

Antrim, Minna

44.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

45.

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.

46.

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

47.

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

Twain, Mark

48.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

49.

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

Homer

50.

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