Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Szilard, Leo

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

This is the punishment of a liar: he is not believed, even when he speaks the truth.

Talmud, The

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

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

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

Kant, Immanuel

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

Epictetus

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

Frost, Robert

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

Liars are always ready to take oaths.

Alfieri, Vittorio, Conte Di

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

10.

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

11.

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

Greene, Graham

12.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

13.

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

Williams, Tennessee

14.

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

Proust, Marcel

15.

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.

16.

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

Szilard, Leo

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Mencken, H. L.

20.

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

Armstrong, Robert

21.

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

22.

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

Twain, Mark

23.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

24.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

25.

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

Greene, Graham

26.

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

27.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

28.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

29.

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

Belloc, Hilaire

30.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

31.

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

32.

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

Steiner, George

33.

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

South, Bishop Robert

34.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

35.

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

36.

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

37.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

38.

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

Merlin

39.

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.

40.

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

41.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

42.

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.

43.

The lie is a condition of life.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

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.

45.

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

Byron, Lord

46.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

47.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

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