“For the trouble with lying and decieving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide. In this sense, truth, even if it does not prevail in public, possesses an ineradicable primacy over all falsehoods.”
"Lying in Politics"
Crises of the Republic (1969)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Hannah Arendt 85
Jewish-American political theorist 1906–1975Related quotes

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

“Truth here makes Falsehood torment lying tongues.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307

“The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use”
Lecture IV
Lectures on Art (1870)
Context: The entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use; and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects, — either to state a true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one.

“It takes as much time and trouble to pull down a falsehood as to build up a truth.”
Book II, p. 398.
Collected Works

March 31, 1778, p. 372
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction