quotations about lies and lying
All kinds of wickedness proceed from lying, as all goodness doth proceed from truth.
CHILO
attributed, Day's Collacon
I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Dr. John Cochran, Aug. 16, 1779
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
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
A good memory is needed once we have lied.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
Le Menteur
There are worse things than a lie... I have found... that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Doctor Wortle's School
Of all the vices incident to man, lying is the most mean, most contemptible; it evinces a very weak, depraved heart, which shrinks at the exposure of motives and of actions.
J. BARTLETT
attributed, Day's Collacon
Lying is the most fun a woman can have without taking her clothes off.
NATALIE PORTMAN
attributed, The Quote Books: Seeds of Wisdom on Every Subject
Lying is a delightful thing for it leads to the truth.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Crime and Punishment
There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Those that think it permissible to tell a white lie soon grow color-blind.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Even a liar tells a hundred truths to one lie; he has to, to make the lie good for anything.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
As the snow before the sun, even so is a polished lie before the naked truth.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
The best lies are always at least partially true.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Blue Moon
Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths.
J. M. COETZEE
Slow Man
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
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
Cathy's lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit. Most liars are tripped up either because they forget what they have told or because the lie is suddenly faced with an incontrovertible truth. But Cathy did not forget her lies, and she developed the most effective method of lying. She stayed close enough to the truth so that one could never be sure. She knew two other methods also -- either to interlard her lies with truth or to tell a truth as though it were a lie. If one is accused of a lie and it turns out to be the truth, there is a backlog that will last a long time and protect a number of untruths.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked.
AYN RAND
Atlas Shrugged
I'm a very firm believer that a liar is a cheat and a thief and a crook. I don't like liars. I never lie. I always told my own child, "If you murder somebody, tell me. I'll help you hide the body. But don't you lie to me."
LEONA HELMSLEY
Playboy, Nov. 1990
When the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth.
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to George E. Pickett, Feb. 22, 1841