Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

- Soderbergh, Steven

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

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

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

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

Thirkell, Angela

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

10.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

11.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

12.

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

Twain, Mark

13.

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

14.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

15.

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

Proverb, Russian

16.

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

17.

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

Antrim, Minna

18.

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

Proust, Marcel

19.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

20.

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

Greene, Graham

21.

The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.

Wilde, Oscar

22.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

23.

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

Homer

24.

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

25.

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

Simon, Paul

26.

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

27.

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

28.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

29.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

30.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

31.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

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.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

34.

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

35.

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.

36.

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

37.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

38.

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

Proust, Marcel

39.

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

Szilard, Leo

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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

42.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

43.

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

Twain, Mark

44.

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

Byron, Lord

45.

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

South, Bishop Robert

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.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

48.

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

Voltaire

49.

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.

50.

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

Williams, Tennessee