Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

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

Zohar

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

Thatcher, Margaret

Pain forces even the innocent to lie.

Syrus, Publilius

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

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

Frost, Robert

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

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

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

South, Bishop Robert

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

Szilard, Leo

10.

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

Simon, Paul

11.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

12.

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

13.

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

Greene, Graham

14.

Burning lies led to my silent cries Keeping it inside I've got everything to hide. lustful desire, a burning fire You are the flame, You are to blame. Beautiful light deliver me from fright dreams full of lust. Or is the dream dreaming us? PHYSICAL PAIN don't call me insane. I don't want to be dead but all beautiful colors bleed to red

15.

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

16.

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

Homer

17.

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

Canetti, Elias

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.

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

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.

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

Crowley, Aleister

22.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

23.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

24.

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.

25.

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

26.

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

Talmud, The

27.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

29.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

30.

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

Merlin

31.

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

32.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

33.

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

Voltaire

34.

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

Aristotle

35.

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

36.

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

Mencken, H. L.

37.

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

Twain, Mark

38.

I would dodge, not lie, in the national interest.

Speakes, Larry

39.

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

Williams, Tennessee

40.

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

Thirkell, Angela

41.

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

Epictetus

42.

Liars need to have good memories.

Sidney, Algernon

43.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

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

Twain, Mark

45.

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.

46.

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

Steiner, George

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

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