LIES AND LYING

Related Subjects: Cheating, Deceit, Error, Hypocrisy, Oath, Slander, Trickery, Truth

1. A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.—AESOP, The Shepherd's Boy

2. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.—Bible, Exodus 20:16
   

3. I said in my haste, All men are liars.—Bible, Psalms 116:11
   

4. The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way—who husbands it too carefully to waste it where it can be dispensed with.—SAMUEL BUTLER, The Way of All Flesh
   

5. Thou liar of the first magnitude.—CONGREVE, Love for Love
   

6. I think a lie with a purpose is wan iv th' worst kind an' th' mos' profitable.—F. P. DUNNE, On Lying
   

7. The lie was raised to the dignity of a political instrument.—EINSTEIN, I Believe
   

8. Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.—O. W. HOLMES,
   The Autocrat at the Breakfast-Table
   

9. When I meet with a falsehood, I care not who the great persons who proclaim it may be, I do not try to like it or believe it or mimic the fashionable prattle of the world about it.—W. H. HUDSON, The Purple Land
   

10. A lie, turned topsy-turvy, can be prinked and tinselled out, decked in plumage new and fine, till none knows its lean old carcass.—IBSEN, Peer Gynt
    

11. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself?—SAMUEL JOHNSON, Boswell: Life
    

12. Whoever has even once become notorious by base fraud, even if he speaks the truth, gains no belief.—PHAEDRUS, Fables
    

13. Jesting lies bring serious sorrows.—Proverb
    

14. A liar is not believed when he speaks the truth.—Proverb
    

15. Show me a liar, and I will show thee a thief.—Proverb
    

16. False folk should have many witnesses.—Proverb
    

17. Almost and very nigh saves many a lie.—Proverb
    

18. A lie begets a lie till they come to generations.—Proverb
    

19. A very honest woman, but something given to lie.—SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra
    

20. I had rather seal my lips, than, to my peril,
    Speak that which is not.—SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra
    

21. Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.—SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV
    

22. Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he. But we rose both at an instant, and f ought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.—SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV
    

23. A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
    O, what a goodly outside falsehood bath!—SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice

24. By telling of it,
    Make such a sinner of his memory,
    To credit his own lie.—SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest
    

25. Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen.—SHAKESPEARE, The Winter's Tale
    

26. Liars ought to have good memories.—ALGERNON SIDNEY, Discourses on Government
    

27. False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.—SOCRATES, Dialogues of Plato

28. The cruellest lies are often told in silence.—STEVENSON, Virginibus Puerisque
    

29. That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,
    That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,
    But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.—TENNYSON, The Grandmother
    

30. An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.—MARK TWAIN, My Military Campaign
    

31. It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one.—MARK TWAIN,Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar