Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Thatcher, Margaret

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

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

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

Mencken, H. L.

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

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

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

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

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

Homer

10.

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

11.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

12.

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

Twain, Mark

13.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

14.

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

Watt, James

15.

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

16.

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

17.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

18.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

19.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

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

Speakes, Larry

21.

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

Greene, Graham

22.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

23.

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

24.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

25.

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

Proverb, Russian

26.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

27.

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

Frost, Robert

28.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

29.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

30.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

31.

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.

32.

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.

33.

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

34.

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

Twain, Mark

35.

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

36.

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

Voltaire

37.

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

38.

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

Byron, Lord

39.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

40.

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

Canetti, Elias

41.

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

42.

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

Epictetus

43.

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

44.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

45.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

46.

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

47.

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

Twain, Mark

48.

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

Haig, Alexander

49.

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

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