Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Simon, Paul

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Mcilvanney, William

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

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

Twain, Mark

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

10.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

11.

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

Merlin

12.

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

13.

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

14.

Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man.

Rowland, Helen

15.

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

Proust, Marcel

16.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

17.

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

Armstrong, Robert

18.

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

Epictetus

19.

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.

20.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

21.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

22.

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

Twain, Mark

23.

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

Williams, Tennessee

24.

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

Twain, Mark

25.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

26.

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

Thirkell, Angela

27.

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

Simon, Paul

28.

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

Kant, Immanuel

29.

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

30.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

31.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

32.

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

33.

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

Greene, Graham

34.

If you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don't sound good to you, it won't sound good to anybody.

Paige, Leroy ''Satchel''

35.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

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.

Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.

Evans

38.

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

Watt, James

39.

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

Feather, William

40.

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

Crowley, Aleister

41.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

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.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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.

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.

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

49.

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

Mencken, H. L.

50.

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

Aristotle