“[ Your thoughts close and your countenance loose. ]”
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
An Elegie, or Friends Passion, for his Astrophill (1586), line 108
“[ Your thoughts close and your countenance loose. ]”
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
Mathew Roydon (1583–1622) English poet
An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“I like big butts, and I cannot lie.”
Sir Mix-a-Lot (1963) American rapper
"Baby Got Back"
Song lyrics, Mack Daddy, 1992
“I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.”
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
The earliest source of this quote was a famous anecdote in The Life of George Washington, with Curious Anecdotes Laudable to Himself and Exemplary to his Countrymen (1806) by Parson Weems, which is not considered a credible source, and many incidents recounted in the work are now considered to have sprung entirely from Weems’ imagination. This derives from an anecdote of Washington, as a young boy, confessing to his father Augustine Washington that it was he who had cut a cherished cherry tree.
Variant:Father, I cannot tell a lie, I cut the tree.
Misattributed, Spurious attributions
“I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.”
Mason Weems (1759–1825) fictionalizing biographer of George Washington
Portrayed as the words of the young George Washington, confessing to have damaged a cherry tree in Life of Washington (1800)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
James Allen (1864–1912) British philosophical writer
As A Man Thinketh (1902), Effect of Thought on Health and the Body
“I thought I'd lie on the floor and writhe in pain for awhile. It relaxes me.”
Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes
Jace to Alec, pg. 318
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
“Historians may lie, but History cannot.”
George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic
Source: A Last Vintage, p. 172.