Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Thatcher, Margaret

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

Watt, James

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

Epictetus

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

Proverb, Russian

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

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

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

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.

10.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

11.

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

12.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

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

Proust, Marcel

14.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

15.

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

16.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

17.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

18.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

19.

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

20.

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

South, Bishop Robert

21.

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

Williams, Tennessee

22.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

23.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

24.

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

Aristotle

25.

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

Armstrong, Robert

26.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

27.

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

Thirkell, Angela

28.

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

Merlin

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Zohar

32.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

33.

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

Antrim, Minna

34.

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

Mencken, H. L.

35.

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

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.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

38.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

39.

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

Phaedrus

40.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

41.

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

42.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

43.

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

Simon, Paul

44.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

45.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

46.

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

Twain, Mark

47.

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

48.

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

Proust, Marcel

49.

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.

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.