Motivational Quotes

Lies and lying

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

- Cicero, Marcus T.

Best Quotes about Lies and lying

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Hoffer, Eric

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

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

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

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

Homer

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

Frost, Robert

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

Greene, Graham

A liar is full of oaths.

Corneille, Pierre

10.

Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.

Proverb, Arabian

11.

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

Feather, William

12.

Never forget that a half truth is a whole lie.

13.

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

14.

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

South, Bishop Robert

15.

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

Dunne, Finley Peter

16.

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

Steiner, George

17.

Great talker, great liar.

Proverb, French

18.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

19.

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.

20.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

21.

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

Mencken, H. L.

22.

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

23.

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

Twain, Mark

24.

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

Proust, Marcel

25.

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

26.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

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

Aristotle

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Twain, Mark

31.

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

32.

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

Mcilvanney, William

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

36.

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

Talmud, The

37.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

Cocteau, Jean

38.

Whoever is detected in a shameful fraud is ever after not believed even if they speak the truth.

Phaedrus

39.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

40.

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

Kant, Immanuel

41.

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

Zohar

42.

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.

43.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

Soderbergh, Steven

44.

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

Armstrong, Robert

45.

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

Byron, Lord

46.

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

Proust, Marcel

47.

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.

48.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

49.

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

Williams, Tennessee

50.

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

Epictetus