Source: Under the Glacier
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Commencement address, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (11 June 1962) http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3370
1962
Context: The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
Source: No Country for Old Men (2005)
Context: The stories gets passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the sayin goes. Which I reckon some would take as meanin that the truth cant compete. But I dont believe that. I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It dont move about from place to place and it dont change from time to time. You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt. You cant corrupt it because that's what it is. It's the thing you're talkin about. I've heard it compared to the rock — maybe in the bible—and I wouldnt disagree with that. But it'll be here even when the rock is gone. I'm sure they's people would disagree with that. Quite a few, in fact. But I never could find out what any of them did believe.
“Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.”
As quoted in Why Men Fall Out of Love : The Secrets They Don't Tell (2005) by Michael French, p. 142
Disputed
“89. All truths are not to be told.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
Interview with Matthew Rettenmund in his book "Totally Awesome 80's" (1996), p. 149-150
“For Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”
Address, American Writers Congress, New York City (1937). Reprinted in New Masses (June 22, 1937)
Context: There is only one form of government that cannot produce good writers, and that system is Fascism. For Fascism is a lie told by bullies. A writer who will not lie cannot live or work under Fascism.
Because Fascism is a lie, it is condemned to literary sterility. And when it is past, it will have no history, except the bloody history of murder.
“The bias of each medium of communication is far more distorting than the deliberate lie.”
JQ. Journalism quarterly, Volume 50, Association for Education in Journalism, 1973, p. 145
1970s
