Quotes about lies
A collection of quotes on the topic of lie.
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„Within the vermilion gate, meats and wines go to waste
While on the roadside lie the frozen bodies of the poor.“
— Du Fu Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty 712 - 770
As quoted in Lin Yutang's The Vermilion Gate (1914)
„A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.“
— Alfred Adler Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist 1870 - 1937
„Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth and justice! I did not come on this voyage for gain, honor or wealth, that is certain; for then the hope of all such things was dead. I came to Your Highnesses with honest purpose and sincere zeal; and I do not lie. I humbly beseech You Highnesses that, if it please God to remove me hence, you will help me to go to Rome and on other pilgrimages.“
— Cristoforo Colombo Explorer, navigator, and colonizer 1451 - 1506
Letter to the Sovereigns (1503)
„When you have something to say, silence is a lie.“
— Jordan Peterson Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology 1962
„The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.“
— Stephen King, book The Body
Different Seasons (1982), The Body
„The girls show up wearing nothing. I can’t lie, I’m 16, I don’t hate it. I don’t have a girlfriend.“
— Justin Bieber Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor 1994
Vibe "Justin Bieber on Photo Shoots, Puberty, 2Pac & Drake" http://www.vibe.com/article/justin-bieber-photo-shoots-puberty-2pac-drake, 22 July 2010
„Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.“
— Neil Gaiman English fantasy writer 1960
Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)
Context: We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.
„I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.“
— Meryl Streep American actress 1949
Misattributed to Meryl Streep (and widely disseminated on the Internet as of August/September 2014), this quote is allegedly a translation of a text by the author José Micard Teixeira, the original of which begins (in Portuguese): "Já não tenho paciência para algumas coisas, não porque me tenha tornado arrogante..."
Misattributed
„On valour's side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch who trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame.“
XV. 563–564 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
Original: (el) Αἰδομένων δ' ἀνδρῶν πλέονες σόοι ἠὲ πέφανται·
φευγόντων δ' οὔτ' ἂρ κλέος ὄρνυται οὔτέ τις ἀλκή.
„Apparently, women need to feel loved to have sex, and men need to have sex to feel loved, so the basic act of continuing the species requires a lie from one of you.“
— Billy Connolly British comedian 1942
An Audience With Billy - 1985
„Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.“
— Oscar Wilde, book The Canterville Ghost
Source: The Canterville Ghost http://www.planetmonk.com/wilde/savile/canterville.c1.html (1887)
„You should look at your reflection
If you wanna see a lie
You're heading in the right direction
If you wanna pick a side
Give me more perfection if you wanna see me cry
Oh if you wanna love somebody
I'm your guy“
— Tom Odell British singer-songwriter 1990
If You Wanna Love Somebody
Lyrics, Jubilee Road
„La terre, elle, ne ment pas [The earth, it does not lie].“
— Philippe Pétain French military and political leader 1856 - 1951
Speech (25 June 1940), quoted in Philippe Pétain, Discours aux Français, 17 juin 1940-20 août 1944 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989), p. 66.
