A
concealed truth, that's all a lie is. Either by omission or
commission we never do more than obscure. The truth stays in the
undergrowth, waiting to be discovered. - Josephine Hart
A
good man will not lie, although it be for his profit. - Cicero
A
good memory is needed once we have lied. - Pierre Corneille
A
good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that
has had a key piece removed from it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A
great lie is like a great fish on dry land; it may fret and fling,
and make a frightful bother, but it cannot hurt you; you have only to
keep still and it will die of itself. - George Crabbe
A
liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with
making truth itself appear like falsehood. - William
Shenstone
A
liar is always lavish of oaths. - Pierre Corneille
A
liar should have a good memory. - Quintilian
A
liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth. - Aesop
A
lie ... is often the mirror image of the truth; by examining it
carefully, you can reconstruct the fact that lie was designed to
conceal. - K. J. Parker
A lie can travel
halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. - Mark
Twain
A
lie has no legs, and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far
and wide. - Chinese Proverb
A
lie is a very short wick in a very small lamp. The oil of reputation
is very soon sucked up and gone. And just as soon as a man is known
to lie, he is like a two-foot pump in a hundred-foot well. He cannot
touch bottom at all. - Henry Ward Beecher
A
lie is like a cat: You need to stop it before it gets out the door or
it’s really hard to catch. -
Charles
M. Blow
A
lie is like a snow-ball; the longer it is rolled, the larger it is. -
Martin Luther
A
lie may take care of the present, but it has no future. - Croft M.
Pentz
A
lie never lives to be old. - Sophocles
A
lie should be trampled on and extinguished wherever found; I am for
fumigating the atmosphere when I suspect that falsehood, like
pestilence, breathes around me. - T. Carlyle
A
lie stands on one leg, truth on two. - Benjamin Franklin
A
lie told often enough becomes the truth. - Vladimir Lenin
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. -
Charles Edward Montague
A lie would have
no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous. - Alfred Adler
A
man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
- Mark Twain
A single lie can make all your
truths questionable. - Unknown
A
single lie discovered is enough to create doubt in every truth
expressed. - Unknown
A
small lie, if it actually is a lie, condemns a man as much as a big
and black falsehood. If a man will deliberately cheat to the amount
of a single cent, give him opportunity and he would cheat to any
amount. - E. H. Chapin
Above
all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens
to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth
within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and
for others. And having no respect he ceases to love. -
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
All
kinds of wickedness proceed from lying, as all goodness doth proceed
from truth. - Chilo
All
lies, white or black, disgrace a gentleman, although I grant there is
a difference: to say the least of it, it is a dangerous habit, for
white lies are but the gentleman ushers to black ones. - Frederick
Marryat
An
equivocation is nearly related to a lie. It is an intention to
deceive under words of a double meaning, or words which, literally
speaking, are true; and is equally criminal with the most downright
breach of truth. A nod or a sign may convey a lie as effectually as
the most deceitful language. - W.
Gilpin
An
unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood. - Aldous
Huxley
And
he that does one fault at first, and lies to hide it, makes it two. -
Isaac
Watts
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man
of some sense to know how to lie well. - Samuel Butler
As
ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice
of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood. - Oliver
Goldsmith
As
the snow before the sun, even so is a polished lie before the naked
truth. - William
Scott Downey
Ask
me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs. - Oliver
Goldsnith
By
repetition, each lie becomes an irreversible fact upon which other
lies are constructed. - John
le Carre
Dare
to be true: nothing can need a lie: A fault, which needs it most,
grows two thereby. -
George
Herbert
Did
their conceit not blind them? Neither
men nor women, who habitually invent lies or garble the truth, could
hope to be long undetected; for people meet who know them, talk over
these statements, and soon ferret out the naked truth; and a few
exposures will render its perverters objects of suspicion for the
remainder of their lives. - Charles
William Day
Don’t
be quick to believe what you hear because lies spread quicker than
the truth. - Unknown
Exaggeration
is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blameable. - Hosea
Ballou
False
words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with
evil. - Plato
Falsehood
has a perennial spring. - Edmund
Burke
For
my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I'll gild it with the happiest
terms I have. - William
Shakespeare
Habitual
liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their
hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly
habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth. - William
Hazlitt
Hard
truths can be dealt with, triumphed over, but lies will destroy your
soul. - Patricia
Briggs
He
who clips away a little truth, and puts in a patch of falsehood to
make measure, is likely to become a skilful manufacturer of lies. -
John
Thornton
He
who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false,
is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion,
does not justify or excuse him. - Abraham
Lincoln
He
who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it
a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells
lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's
believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the
heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. - Thomas
Jefferson
He who tells a lie is not sensible
of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more
to maintain that one. - Alexander Pope
He
will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were
a fool. - William
Shakespeare
If one cannot invent a really
convincing lie, it is often better to stick to the truth. - Angela Thirkell
If sentiment doesn't ultimately make fibbers of some people, their natural abominable memories almost certainly will. - J. D. Salinger
If you lie too often and get away
with it, you will trap yourself in a world of self-deception. - Unknown
If
you live in bad faith, lies will appear to you like the truth. -
Frank
Herbert
If
you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth. - Logan
Smith
It
is planned speeches that contain lies or dissimulations, not what you
blurt out so spontaneously in one instant. - Tennessee
Williams
It is the patriotic duty of
every man to lie for his country. - Alfred Adler
It
is, perhaps, a debatable question, whether a person who has always
been notoriously in the habit of lying, has a right to tell the
truth; it is, of course, the only device by which he can deceive
people. - George
Denison Prentice
It
was easier to lie with a gesture than a word. - Samuel
R. Delany
Liars
often set their own traps. - Aesop
Lies
are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful.
Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and
manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some.
These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are
doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling
pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies. - WM.
Paul Young
Lies
are like sleeping pills. You should only use them when you absolutely
have to. They spoil everything if you make a habit of them. - Daniel
Quinn
Lies
don't fix things. They don't even make things easier, at least not in
the long run. Best to tell the truth and then clean up an honest
mess. - P.
C. Cast & Kristin Cast
Lies
were like acid, corrosive: They could dissolve trust in a heartbeat.
- Rob
Thurman
Little
lies are very dangerous, because there are so many of them, and
because each one of them scours upon the character as
diamond-pointed. - Henry
Ward Beecher
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts. - Claire Booth Luce
Lying
is a false significance of speech, with a will to deceive, which
cannot be cured but by shame and reason; it is a monstrous and wicked
evil, that filthily depraved and defileth the tongue of man. - John
Jones
Lying
is done with words, and also with silence. - Adrienne
Rich
Lying
is easy. But it's lonely. - Victoria
Schwab
Lying
is sometimes acted, insinuated, or implied, in a manner as injurious
and shameful as when the falsehood is spoken outright. - Elias
Lyman Magoon
Lying is
the most simple form of self-defence. - Susan Sontag
Lying,
the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art. -
Oscar
Wilde
Most
people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they
prefer it. - Laurel
K. Hamilton
Never
argue with someone who believes their own lies. - Unknown
Never chase a
lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death. - Lyman Beecher
Never
lie to yourself. - Unknown
Never
try to destroy someone else's life with a lie when yours can be
destroyed with the truth. - Unknown
No
man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar. - Abraham
Lincoln
No
one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into
someone’s eyes. -
Paulo
Coelho
None
speaks false, when there is none to hear. - James
Beattie
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive! - Sir Walter Scott
On
the whole, lying is a cheerful affair. Embellishments are intended to
give pleasure. People long to tell you what they imagine you want to
hear. They want to amuse you; they want to amuse themselves; they
want to show you a good time. This is beyond hospitality. This is
art. - Isabel
Fonseca
One
lie must be thatched with another, or it will soon rain through. -
John
Owen
Only
a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. - Isaac
Asimov
Our
lies reveal as much about us as our truths. - J.
M. Coetzee
People
will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one. - Adolf
Hitler
Sin has many
tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
So
near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust
himself on the narrow edge. - Cicero
Some
liars are so expert they deceive themselves. - Austin
O’Malley
Some
lies are easier to believe than the truth. - Brian
Herbert& Kevin J. Anderson
Some
truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies, to please the
fools, and puzzle all the wise. - John
Dryen
Someone who knows too much finds
it hard not to lie. -
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Sometimes
you can learn things from the way a person denies something. The
choice of lies can be almost as helpful as the truth.- Laurel
K. Hamilton
The
best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest
way. - Samuel Butler
The
best lies are always at least partially true. -
Laurel K. Hamilton
The
closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when
it can be used, is the best lie. - Isaac
Asimov
The
essence of a lie is the intention to deceive. - M.
Prideaux
The
liar suffers twice: he neither believes nor is believed. - Baltasar
Gracian
The
liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he cannot be believed,
but that he cannot believe anyone else. - George Bernard Shaw
The
lie that flatters I abhor the most. - William
Cowper
The
man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a
pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him. - Fyodor
Dostoevsky
The
most dangerous liars are those who think they are telling the truth.
- Unknown
The
most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of lie is a
half-truth. This is the peculiar device of a conscientious detractor.
- Washington
Allston
The
most mischievous liars are those who keep on the verge of truth. -
Eliza
Cook
The
only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell
ourselves. - V.
S. Naipaul
The
slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth
at the right time – and then shut up. - Robert
A. Heinlein
The
trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends
entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver
wishes to hide. -
Hannah
Arendt
The
trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool. - Stephen
King
The
truth is always an insult or a joke, lies are generally tastier. We
love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for
anyone's comfort. - Katherine
Dunn
The
worst part about being lied to is knowing that you weren’t worth
the truth. -
Mishaela
There
are some disguised falsehoods so like truths, that 'twould be to
judge ill not to be deceived by them. - Francois
de la Rochefoucauld
There
is no liar lying like an angry man. - Unknown
There
is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie. – Aeschylus
There
is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false
and perfidious. - Francis
Bacon
There is no
worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it. - William James
There
is nothing worse for the lying soul than the mirror of reality. -
Steve Maraboli
There
must be repressed truth even in lies. - Stanislaw
Ignacy
They
say that it is the practiced liar who can deceive. But so often the
practiced and chronic liar deceives only himself; it is the man who
all his life has been self-convicted of veracity whose lies find
quickest credence. - William
Faulkner
Things
come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.
- Dorothy Allison
Those
who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow
colour-blind. -
Austin
O’Malley
Truly, to tell lies is not
honourable; but when the truth entails tremendous ruin, to speak dishonourably
is pardonable. - Sophocles
Truth
travels slowly and gets weaker as it goes. Suitable lies are strong
and run faster. - Ariana
Franklin
We
assume that all statements must be mild inversions of the truth,
because it's too weird to imagine people who aren't casually lying,
pretty much all the time. - Chuck
Klosterman
We
cannot teach children the danger of telling lies to men without
realising, on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children.
A single untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results
of his education. - Jean
Jacques Rousseau
When
a liar became too skilled at deception, he could lose the ability to
discern truth, and could himself be more easily deceived. - Dean
Koontz
When
the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth. - George
Horace Lorimer
Who
lies for you will lie against you. -
Bosnian
Proverb
With
lies you may get ahead in the world – but you can never go back. -
Russian
Proverb
With
the beginning of life, comes the thirst for truth, whereas the
ability to lie is gradually acquired in the process of trying to stay
alive. - Gao
XingJian
Without lies humanity would perish
of despair and boredom. -
Anatole France
You
may tell the greatest lies and wear a brilliant disguise, but you
can't escape the eyes of the one who sees right through you. - Tom
Robbins
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth. - William Shakespeare