Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

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

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

Simon, Paul

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

Watt, James

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

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

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

Aristotle

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

Proverb, Russian

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

10.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

11.

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

Greene, Graham

12.

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

Williams, Tennessee

13.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

14.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

15.

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

16.

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

Proust, Marcel

17.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

18.

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

Feather, William

19.

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

20.

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

Proust, Marcel

21.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

22.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

23.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

24.

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

Mencken, H. L.

25.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

26.

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

27.

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

Byron, Lord

28.

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

29.

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

Canetti, Elias

30.

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

Twain, Mark

31.

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.

32.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

33.

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

Greene, Graham

34.

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

35.

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

Merlin

36.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Kant, Immanuel

40.

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

Talmud, The

41.

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

Frost, Robert

42.

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

43.

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

Homer

44.

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

45.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

46.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

47.

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

48.

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

Voltaire

49.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

50.

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.