Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

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

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Zohar

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

Simon, Paul

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

Twain, Mark

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

Talmud, The

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

10.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

11.

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

12.

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

Speakes, Larry

13.

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.

14.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

15.

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.

16.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

17.

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

18.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

19.

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

Williams, Tennessee

20.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

21.

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

22.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

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

Byron, Lord

24.

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

25.

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

Feather, William

26.

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

Szilard, Leo

27.

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

Twain, Mark

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.

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

Crowley, Aleister

30.

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

Haig, Alexander

31.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

32.

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

Greene, Graham

33.

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

Mencken, H. L.

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Homer

38.

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

Merlin

39.

A liar is full of oaths.