Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Phaedrus

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

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Antrim, Minna

10.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

11.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

12.

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

Crowley, Aleister

13.

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

14.

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

Voltaire

15.

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

Greene, Graham

16.

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

17.

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

Haig, Alexander

18.

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

Mencken, H. L.

19.

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

20.

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

Greene, Graham

21.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

22.

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

Frost, Robert

23.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

24.

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

25.

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

Szilard, Leo

26.

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

27.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

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.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

30.

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

Twain, Mark

31.

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

Proust, Marcel

32.

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

Canetti, Elias

33.

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

Williams, Tennessee

34.

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

Proverb, Russian

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

39.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

40.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

41.

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

Zohar

42.

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

Epictetus

43.

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

Aristotle

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

47.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

48.

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.