Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

- Syrus, Publilius

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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.

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''

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

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

Watt, James

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

Proust, Marcel

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

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

Epictetus

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

Proust, Marcel

10.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

11.

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

Twain, Mark

12.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

14.

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

Talmud, The

15.

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

16.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

17.

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

Williams, Tennessee

18.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

19.

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

20.

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

Thirkell, Angela

21.

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

Aristotle

22.

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.

23.

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

24.

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

Crowley, Aleister

25.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

26.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

27.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Voltaire

31.

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.

32.

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

Twain, Mark

33.

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

Mencken, H. L.

34.

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

35.

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

Armstrong, Robert

36.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

37.

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.

38.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

39.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

40.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

41.

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

42.

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

43.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

44.

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

Twain, Mark

45.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

46.

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

Steiner, George

47.

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

48.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

49.

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

South, Bishop Robert

50.

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