quotations about lies and lying
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The Examiner, Nov. 9, 1710
Excellent speech becomes not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince.
BIBLE
Proverbs 17:7
Falsehood has a perennial spring.
EDMUND BURKE
speech on American Taxation, 1774
These lies are like the father that begets them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part I
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
attributed, Many Thoughts of Many Minds
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
"Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth", Witness Literature: Proceedings of the Nobel Centennial Symposium
The thing that you know to be true is the lie that will kill you.
GLEN COOK
Soldiers Live
There never was a liar that had not a spot in him where he could not help admiring truth.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.
S. E. HINTON
The Outsiders
I never lie ... at least not to those I don't love.
ANNE RICE
The Vampire Lestat
We need falsifications to make the past inhabitable.
FRANS KELLENDONK
Het Complete Werk
There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second, dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not, that he is. And the third, simulation, in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be, that he is not.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
"Of Simulation and Dissimulation", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
There are some disguised falsehoods so like truths, that 'twould be to judge ill not to be deceived by them.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
We all know that a lie needs no other grounds, than the invention of the liar; and to take for granted as truth, all that is alleged against the fame of others, is a species of credulity, that men would blush at on any other subject.
JANE PORTER
Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks
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
Peter Simple
Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
She Stoops to Conquer
And this wasn't lying, not really. It was leaving out.
STEPHEN KING
Hearts in Atlantis
The lie that flatters I abhor the most.
WILLIAM COWPER
Table Talk
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
attributed, Winston Churchill's Great Quotation Book: From Alamein to Zest for Life
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
The Vicar of Wakefield