Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Belloc, Hilaire

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

South, Bishop Robert

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

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

Aristotle

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

Twain, Mark

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

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

Armstrong, Robert

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

10.

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

Proust, Marcel

11.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

12.

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

Byron, Lord

13.

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

14.

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

Feather, William

15.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

16.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

22.

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

23.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

24.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

25.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

26.

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''

27.

A lie with a purpose is one of the worst kind, and the most profitable.

Dunne, Finley Peter

28.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

29.

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

Haig, Alexander

30.

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

Voltaire

31.

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

Watt, James

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Frost, Robert

35.

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

Twain, Mark

36.

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

Speakes, Larry

37.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

38.

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

Greene, Graham

39.

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.

40.

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

Phaedrus

41.

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

42.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Mcilvanney, William

48.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

49.

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

50.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.