Compare sourced quote set forth above: "The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it."
Attributed to Goebbels in Publications Relating to Various Aspects of Communism http://books.google.com/books?id=iLAnAQAAMAAJ&q=%22If+you+repeat+a+lie+often+enough,+people+will+believe+it.%22&dq=%22If+you+repeat+a+lie+often+enough,+people+will+believe+it.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=U4gPUvObG4qMyQHlhYAw&ved=0CGQQ6AEwCQ (1946), by United States Congress, House Committee on Un-American Activities. No reliable source has been located, and this is probably simply a further variation of the Big Lie idea.
Variants:
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth.
If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
Attributed in The Sack of Rome (2006) by Alexander Stille, p. 14, and also attributed in A World Without Walls: Freedom, Development, Free Trade and Global Governance (2003) by Mike Moore, p. 63.
Misattributed
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
“If you hear nonsense like that often enough for long enough, you begin to believe it.”
Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 15 (p. 291)
“Lie until even you believe it - that's the real secret of lying”
Source: White Cat
Attributed to Diane Sawyer in: R.J. Ackerman (1995) Before It's Too Late. p. 95
“Once you told yourself a story enough times, it was so easy to keep on believing it.”
Source: Time and Again (1951), Chapter XLII (p. 215)
“If you don't believe in yourself, then who will believe in you?”
Attributed to Korda in The Power of Choice (2007) by Joyce Guccione, p. 52, the earliest occurrence of such phrasing yet located is by Martin Lawrence, in "What Up?" in Upscale : The Successful Black Magazine (February 1993), p. 79: "If you don't believe in yourself, then who will believe in you? The next man's way of getting there might not necessarily work for me, so I have to create my own ways of getting there."
Disputed
