Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Nietzsche, Friedrich

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

Antrim, Minna

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 liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

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.

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

Proust, Marcel

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

Belloc, Hilaire

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.

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

Thirkell, Angela

10.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

11.

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

South, Bishop Robert

12.

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

Phaedrus

13.

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

Steiner, George

14.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

15.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

16.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

17.

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

France, Anatole

18.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

19.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

20.

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

21.

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

22.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

23.

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

Canetti, Elias

24.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

25.

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

26.

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

Mencken, H. L.

27.

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

Haig, Alexander

28.

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

Aristotle

29.

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

Proverb, Russian

30.

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

31.

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

Zohar

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

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.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

39.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

40.

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

Armstrong, Robert

41.

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

Homer

42.

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

Greene, Graham

43.

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

Merlin

44.

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

45.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

46.

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.

47.

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

Simon, Paul

48.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

49.

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

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.