Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Twain, Mark

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

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

Canetti, Elias

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

Proust, Marcel

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

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

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.

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

Thirkell, Angela

10.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

11.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

12.

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

13.

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

Epictetus

14.

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

Mencken, H. L.

15.

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.

16.

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.

17.

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

18.

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.

19.

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

Zohar

20.

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

Talmud, The

21.

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

22.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

23.

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

Watt, James

24.

When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.

Merlin

25.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

26.

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

Byron, Lord

27.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

28.

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

Speakes, Larry

29.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

30.

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

Proverb, Russian

31.

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

Greene, Graham

32.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

33.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

34.

Never to lie is to have no lock to your door, you are never wholly alone.

Bowen, Elizabeth

35.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

36.

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.

37.

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

38.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

39.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

40.

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

Armstrong, Robert

41.

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

42.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

43.

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.

44.

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

Voltaire

45.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

46.

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

Feather, William

47.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

48.

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

49.

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

Antrim, Minna

50.

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