“It’s always better to tell a half-truth than a half-lie.”
Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 13, “Autumn Leaves” (p. 277)
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Ben Aaronovitch 28
British television writer 1964Related quotes
"What I Believe" in The Forum 84 (September 1930), p. 139; some of these expressions were also used separately in other Mencken essays.
1930s
Context: I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty and the democratic form is as bad as any of the other forms.
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech — alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I —But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.
“Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“Better is halfe a lofe than no bread.”
Part I, chapter 11.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: Throw no gyft agayne at the geuers head,
For better is halfe a lofe than no bread.
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
Variant: A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
“1781. Half a Loaf is better than no Bread.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Better to be ignorant of a matter than half know it.”
Maxim 865
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave
“An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.”
Die Fackel no. 270/71 (19 January 1909)
Die Fackel
