Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- South, Bishop Robert

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

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

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

Thatcher, Margaret

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

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

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.

Twain, Mark

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

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

Greene, Graham

10.

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

11.

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

Merlin

12.

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

Aristotle

13.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

17.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

18.

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''

19.

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

Twain, Mark

20.

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.

21.

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

Proust, Marcel

22.

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

Williams, Tennessee

23.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

24.

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

Feather, William

25.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

26.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

27.

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

Watt, James

28.

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

Thirkell, Angela

29.

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

Szilard, Leo

30.

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

31.

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

Steiner, George

32.

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

Crowley, Aleister

33.

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.

34.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

35.

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

Kant, Immanuel

36.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Mcilvanney, William

40.

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

South, Bishop Robert

41.

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

42.

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

Byron, Lord

43.

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.

44.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

45.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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.

They say is often a great liar.

Proverb

48.

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

Armstrong, Robert

49.

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

Frost, Robert

50.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.