Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Byron, Lord

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

Crowley, Aleister

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

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

Aristotle

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.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

10.

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

11.

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

Byron, Lord

12.

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

Voltaire

13.

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

Epictetus

14.

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

Mcilvanney, William

15.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

16.

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

Proverb, Russian

17.

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

18.

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

Twain, Mark

19.

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

Speakes, Larry

20.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

21.

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

Haig, Alexander

22.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

23.

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

Merlin

24.

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

Greene, Graham

25.

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

Steiner, George

26.

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

Williams, Tennessee

27.

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

Homer

28.

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

Twain, Mark

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Twain, Mark

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

36.

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

37.

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

Talmud, The

38.

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

Szilard, Leo

39.

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

Armstrong, Robert

40.

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

Canetti, Elias

41.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

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.

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

44.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

45.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

46.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

47.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

48.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

49.

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

Zohar

50.

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.