quotations about lies and lying
It was so useful to lie with the truth.
TANITH LEE
The Silver Metal Lover
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
Velocity
Lying ... is so ill a quality, and the mother of so many ill ones that spawn from it, and take shelter under it, that a child should be brought up in the greatest abhorrence of it imaginable. It should be always spoke of before him with the utmost detestation, as a quality so wholly inconsistent with the name and character of a gentleman, that no body of any credit can bear the imputation of a lie; a mark that is judg'd in utmost disgrace, which debases a man to the lowest degree of a shameful meanness, and ranks him with the most contemptible part of mankind and the abhorred rascality; and is not to be endured in any one who would converse with people of condition, or have any esteem or reputation in the world.
JOHN LOCKE
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
If you live in bad faith, lies will appear to you like the truth.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.
GEORGE ELIOT
Silas Marner
Not only did I lie about lying, but I lied about lying about lying. And you'd better believe that's the truth.
JAROD KINTZ
The Titanic Would Never Have Sunk If It Were Made Out of a Sink
Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies,
To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.
JOHN DRYDEN
Absalom and Achitophel
A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
A half-truth does more mischief than a whole lie.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
There must be repressed truth even in lies.
STANISLAW IGNACY WITKIEWICZ
The Madman and the Nun
No mask like open truth to cover lies,
As to go naked is the best disguise.
WILLIAM CONGREVE
The Double Dealer
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
Prenticiana; Or, Wit and Humor in Paragraphs
Some lies are easier to believe than the truth.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
MARK TWAIN
Autobiography
Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Maybe I could dole out the truth in tiny pieces that, once assembled, would make a picture that resembled a reality in which I hadn't done anything wrong.
PAULA STOKES
Liars, Inc.
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 selfconvicted of veracity whose lies find quickest credence.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Light in August
And he that does one fault at first,
And lies to hide it, makes it two.
ISAAC WATTS
"Song XV"
Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
ALBERT CAMUS
The Fall
In thy foul throat thou liest.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Richard III