Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Szilard, Leo

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

Aristotle

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

Greene, Graham

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

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

South, Bishop Robert

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

Phaedrus

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

Crowley, Aleister

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

Armstrong, Robert

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

Thatcher, Margaret

10.

Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.

Proust, Marcel

11.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

12.

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.

13.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Thirkell, Angela

19.

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

Frost, Robert

20.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

21.

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

Twain, Mark

22.

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

23.

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

Byron, Lord

24.

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

25.

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

Epictetus

26.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

28.

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''

29.

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

Watt, James

30.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Burning lies led to my silent cries Keeping it inside I've got everything to hide. lustful desire, a burning fire You are the flame, You are to blame. Beautiful light deliver me from fright dreams full of lust. Or is the dream dreaming us? PHYSICAL PAIN don't call me insane. I don't want to be dead but all beautiful colors bleed to red

36.

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

Mencken, H. L.

37.

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

Talmud, The

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.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

40.

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.

41.

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

42.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

43.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

44.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

45.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

46.

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

47.

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

Zohar

48.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

49.

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

Mcilvanney, William

50.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.