Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

When you rationalize, you do just that. You make rational lies.

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.

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

Steiner, George

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

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

Aristotle

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

10.

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

Byron, Lord

11.

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

12.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

13.

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

Simon, Paul

14.

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

Twain, Mark

15.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

16.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

17.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

18.

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

Speakes, Larry

19.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

21.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

22.

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

Williams, Tennessee

23.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

24.

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

25.

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

Voltaire

26.

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

27.

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

Phaedrus

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Proust, Marcel

31.

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

Mcilvanney, William

32.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

33.

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

34.

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

Merlin

35.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

36.

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

Zohar

37.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

38.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

39.

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

Twain, Mark

40.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

41.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

42.

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

43.

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.

44.

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

Armstrong, Robert

45.

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

Twain, Mark

46.

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

Proverb, Russian

47.

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

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

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.