Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Greene, Graham

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

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

Merlin

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

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

Aristotle

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

Steiner, George

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

Kant, Immanuel

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

10.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

11.

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.

12.

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

Speakes, Larry

13.

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.

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Byron, Lord

17.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

18.

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

19.

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

Thirkell, Angela

20.

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

21.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

22.

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

Twain, Mark

23.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

24.

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

Mcilvanney, William

25.

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

Szilard, Leo

26.

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

Antrim, Minna

27.

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

Greene, Graham

28.

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

29.

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

Twain, Mark

30.

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

31.

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

32.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

33.

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

Crowley, Aleister

34.

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

Phaedrus

35.

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

Epictetus

36.

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

Proust, Marcel

37.

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

Talmud, The

38.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

39.

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

Twain, Mark

40.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

South, Bishop Robert

44.

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

Homer

45.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

46.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

47.

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

Armstrong, Robert

48.

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

Feather, William

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.

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