In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Where lies are easily admitted, the father of lies is not easily kept out.
—Unknown
A liar is full of oaths.
—Pierre Corneille (1606–84) French Poet, Dramatist
You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.
—Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British Head of State
Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.
—William McIlvanney (1936–2015) Scottish Novelist, Short Story Writer, Poet
Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) English Occultist, Mystic, Magician
When thou art obliged to speak, be sure to speak the truth; for equivocation is half way to lying, and lying is the whole way to hell.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Philosopher, Political Leader
Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
They say is often a great liar.
—Common Proverb
Nobody speaks the truth when there’s something they must have.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
By a lie, a man…annihilates his dignity as a man.
—Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Prussian German Philosopher, Logician
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!
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French Novelist, Polemicist
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
—Samuel Butler
If a man had the art of second-sight for seeing lies as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits, how admirably he might entertain himself by observing the different shapes, sizes, and colors of those swarms of lies, which buzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horse’s ears in summer; or those legions hovering every afternoon so as to darken the air; or over a club of discontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes, to be scattered at elections.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian Dissident Novelist
Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don’t.
—Unknown
Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
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.
—Helen Rowland (1875–1950) American Journalist, Humorist
It is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation.
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) British Historian, Poet, Critic
Lying and stealing are next door neighbors.
—Arabic Proverb
Nothing is rarer than a solitary lie; for lies breed like toads; you cannot tell one but out it comes with a hundred young ones on its back.
—Washington Allston (1779–1843) American Landscape Painter
The most intangible, and therefore the worst kind of a lie, is a half-truth.—This is the peculiar device of the “conscientious” detractor.
—Washington Allston (1779–1843) American Landscape Painter
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.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Never to lie is to have no lock to your door, you are never wholly alone.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
Liars are always ready to take oaths.
—Vittorio Alfieri (1749–1803) Italian Poet, Dramatist
Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
A wilful falsehood is a cripple, not able to stand by itself without another to support it. It is easy to tell a lie, but hard to tell only one lie.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
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
—Unknown
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