Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

South, Bishop Robert

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

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

Twain, Mark

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

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

Voltaire

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

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

10.

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

Homer

11.

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

Haig, Alexander

12.

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

Antrim, Minna

13.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

14.

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.

15.

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

Proust, Marcel

16.

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

Twain, Mark

17.

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

Thirkell, Angela

18.

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.

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Feather, William

22.

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

Szilard, Leo

23.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

24.

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

Mencken, H. L.

25.

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

Epictetus

26.

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

Williams, Tennessee

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Byron, Lord

30.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

31.

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

Speakes, Larry

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Phaedrus

36.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

37.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

38.

By a lie, a man...annihilates his dignity as a man.

Kant, Immanuel

39.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

40.

He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

Greene, Graham

41.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

42.

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

Mcilvanney, William

43.

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

Crowley, Aleister

44.

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

45.

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

Twain, Mark

46.

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

Aristotle

47.

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

Canetti, Elias

48.

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

Simon, Paul

49.

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.

50.

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