“Truly, to tell lies is not honorable;
But when the truth entails tremendous ruin,
To speak dishonorably is pardonable.”

— Sophocles

Creusa, fragment 323.

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Sophocles 68

ancient Greek tragedian -496–-406 BC

Stanley Lombardo (1943) Philosopher, Classicist

Theogony, lines 28–29
Translations, Works and Days and Theogony (1993)

“Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he, "That when they speak truth they are not believed."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Aristotle, 9.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics

“The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speaks he lies.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

De Profundis (1897)

“A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

Letter to the Democratic Convention (17 August 1884).
Context: A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil. Contented labor is an element of national prosperity. Ability to work constitutes the capital and the wage of labor the income of a vast number of our population, and this interest should be jealously protected. Our workingmen are not asking unreasonable indulgence, but as intelligent and manly citizens they seek the same consideration which those demand who have other interests at stake. They should receive their full share of the care and attention of those who make and execute the laws, to the end that the wants and needs of the employers and the employed shall alike be subserved and the prosperity of the country, the common heritage of both, be advanced.

“An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory.”

Millard Fillmore (1800–1874) American politician, 13th President of the United States (in office from 1850 to 1853)

Speech http://books.google.com/books?id=Ihs8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA407&dq=honorable+defeat (13 September 1844), Buffalo, New York, quoted in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser (14 September 1844). Fillmore had lost the Whig nomination for governor of New York. The newspaper summary was: "He entreated them to enter the contest with zeal and enthusiasm; but as they valued the sacredness of their cause, and the stability of their principles, to resort to no unfair means: that an honorable defeat was better than a dishonorable victory."
1840s