Quotes about lies
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“Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: DId you think I meant country matters?
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.
Hamlet: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
Ophelia: What is, my lord?
Hamlet: Nothing.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Thinking, Country

“I'm sorry," she said humbly. "I haven't wanted to lie to you."
"I should hope so. You're the worst liar I've ever met." He thought about it for a moment, then added, "--or the best. Now I'm all confused.”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

Hope

“When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1932–2017) Russian poet, film director, teacher

Truth, Silence

“Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, Part I, Chapter 11, "Vom neuen Götzen" ("The New Idol"). Published in four parts between 1883 and 1891 Another translation: “But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.”

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Dreams, Star, Funny

“How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah

Source: Americanah

Imagination

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Truth, World, Shoe, Way

“A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Prisoner of Heaven

Source: The Prisoner of Heaven

Truth

“… the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Variant: A past tense, future perfect kind of night.
Source: White Teeth (2000)

Past, Future, Perfection

“Is it the sea you hear in me?
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Love, Cry, Sea, Madness

“It is a lie that people who love each other must know everything about each other. Love must occasionally allow for a gap.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: Margarettown

Love, People

“A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

Truth, World

“The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Truth, History

“Now that my ladder’s gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Circus Animals' Desertion, III
Last Poems (1936-1939)

Heart

“If you've a story, make sure it's a whole one, with details close to hand. It's the difference between a good lie and getting caught.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Source: Trickster's Choice

“I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Heart

“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)

Pain

“It’s tough to get out of bed; I know that myself. You can lie there for an hour and a half without thinking anything, just worrying about what the day holds and knowing that you won’t be able to deal with it.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Thinking

“Lie on the bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, or wade through the swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It's very easy to enjoy yourself.”

Tove Jansson book Moominvalley in November

Source: Moominvalley in November

Water, Past

“We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe
that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie
asleep.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Sleep, Universe, Parting

“Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Sleep

“Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note,
Unto the sweet bird's throat;
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Love, Bird, Tree, Winter

“Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

People, Tear

“Time to live, time to lie, time to laugh, and time to die. Take it easy baby. Take it as it comes.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Time, Baby

“Never inside, I didn't lie in my heart…”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Heart

“Multitasking is a lie”

Gary Keller

Source: The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

“At this hour
Lie at my mercy all mine enemies.”

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Source: The Tempest

“What would you think if I told you that I wasn’t an Allomancer?” Sazed asked.
“I’d think that you were lying,” Vin said.
“Have you known me to lie before?”
“The best liars are those who tell the truth most of the time.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Truth, Lying, Thinking, Time

“Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: Well, what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo: In bed asleep while they do dream things true.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Dreams

“I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Source: Death of a Salesman

Life

“I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Give me just enough information so that I can lie convincingly.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Flowers, Idea

“Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.”

Louise Fitzhugh book Harriet the Spy

Source: Harriet the Spy

Truth

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Cats

“They lie deadly that tell you have good faces.”

William Shakespeare Coriolanus

Source: Coriolanus

“The most common sort of lie is that by which a man deceives himself: the deception of others is a relatively rare offense.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: The Anti-Christ

“A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.”

William Blake Auguries of Innocence

Source: 1800s, Auguries of Innocence (1803), Line 53

Truth

“Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Life, World, Dreams, Change

“We tell lies when we are afraid… afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Fear, Thinking, Time

“the lie is a condition of life.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Life

“All truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth

“A lie is an act of theft. It steals peoples faith and makes them resent themselves”

James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer

People, Faith

“One of the most poisonous of all Satan’s whispers is simply, “Things will never change.” That lie kills expectation, trapping our heart forever in the present. To keep desire alive and flourishing, we must renew our vision for what lies ahead. Things will not always be like this. Jesus has promised to “make all things new.” Eye has not seen, ear has not heard all that God has in store for his lovers, which does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot outdream God. Desire is kept alive by imagination, the antidote to resignation. We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope.”

John Eldredge

Source: The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God

God, Hope, Imagination, Lovers

“Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.”

Theodor W. Adorno book Minima Moralia

Kunst ist Magie, befreit von der Lüge, Wahrheit zu sein.
E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 143
Minima Moralia (1951)

Truth, Art

“All boys lie," Ben said. "And all girls lie, too. I lie. You lie. Don't pretend you don't.”

Holly Black book The Darkest Part of the Forest

The Darkest Part of the Forest

Girl, Boy

“Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.”

Jean Rhys book Wide Sargasso Sea

Source: Wide Sargasso Sea

Dreams

“You might want to lie down. I find that helps when the crushing sense of horrible realization sets in.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Magnus to Maia, pg. 274
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Sense, Help

“Honesty is, honestly, the best policy,” said Saracen. “But when honesty doesn’t work, lie, and lie convincingly.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Dying of the Light

“Which side of the blade is sharper? The lie or the truth? It all seems irrelevant when your jugular is sliced open and you’re lying in a pool of blood for the whole world to see.”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Truth, World, Lying

“You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to makes such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person I thought it was your secret pride."

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."

She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Love, Secret, Personality

“But why do I notice everything? She thought. Why must I think? She did not want to think. She wanted to force her mind to become a blank and lie back, and accept quietly, tolerantly, whatever came.”

Virginia Woolf book The Years

Source: The Years

Thinking

“What is the truth, but a lie agreed upon.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth

“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

Source: The Crucible (1953)
Context: Danforth: Do you mean to deny this confession when you are free?
Proctor: I mean to deny nothing!
Danforth: Then explain to me, Mr. Proctor, why you will not let —
Proctor: [With the cry of his whole soul] Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

Life, Soul

“Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Grass, Time

“When you lose your temper, you lose a friend. When you lie, you lose yourself.”

Robyn Carr American writer

Harvest Moon

“My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Problem

“You may lie with your mouth, but with the mouth you make as you do so you none the less tell the truth.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth

“What is truth? The negation of lies? Or the statement of a fact? And if the fact is a lie, what then is the truth?”

Andrzej Sapkowski book Sword of Destiny

Source: Sword of Destiny

Truth

“In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream- Lingering in the golden gleam- Life, what is it but a dream?”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking Glass

Life, Dreams, Summer

“Through all this horror my cat stalked unperturbed. Once I saw him monstrously perched atop a mountain of bones, and wondered at the secrets that might lie behind his yellow eyes.”

H.P. Lovecraft book The Rats in the Walls

Source: The Rats in the Walls

Secret, Mountain, Cats

“Man has much power of discourse which for the most part is vain and false; animals have but little, but it is useful and true, and a small truth is better than a great lie.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Source: Leonardo's Notebooks

Truth, Animals, Parting, Falseness

“To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

Source: De Profundis

Life, Soul

“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.”

Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire

Source: Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

Law

“Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: Reviews

Soul, Passion, Perfection

“A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain

Truth

“Let me get this stright, Aya-Chan. You want me, a person who can't lie, to lie about the fact that I can't lie?"
-Frizz mizuno”

Scott Westerfeld book Extras

Source: Extras

Personality

“There is only one sin. and that is theft… when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Truth

“We have the right to lie, but not about the heart of the matter.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Heart

“It is a lie if we tell ourselves that the police can protect us everywhere, at all times. Firearms restrictions are bad enough, but now a woman can't even carry Mace in her purse?”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

1990s, Letter to John J. LaFalce (1992)

Time

“No days you can borrow, no time you can buy.
No trust in tomorrow. It's a lie.”

Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter

Dreidel
Song lyrics, Don McLean (1972)

Time

“There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hard-working artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life’s task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?”

Thomas Mann book Death in Venice

Source: Death in Venice (1912), Ch. 3, as translated by David Luke

Love, Life, Perfection, Sea

“To Live signifies to believe and hope — to lie and to lie to oneself.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Hope

“The vicious lover is the follower of earthly Love who desires the body rather than the soul; his heart is set on what is mutable and must therefore be inconstant. And as soon as the body he loves begins to pass the first flower of its beauty, he "spreads his wings and flies away," giving the lie to all his pretty speeches and dishonoring his vows, whereas the lover whose heart is touched by moral beauties is constant all his life, for he has become one with what will never fade.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

183e, M. Joyce, trans, Collected Dialogues of Plato (1961), p. 537
The Symposium

Love, Life, Beauty, Soul

“Except for music, everything is a lie, even solitude, even ecstasy. Music, in fact, is the one and the other, only better.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

Music, Solitude

“Aren’t our eyes made to be torn out, and our hearts for the same purpose? At the same time it’s really not that bad; that’s an exaggeration and a lie, everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing, which cannot be exaggerated. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it’s really an expression of everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted, but it’s true.
Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most — you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Hat matt nicht die Augen, um sich sie auszureißen und das Herz zum gleichen Zweck? Dabei ist es ja nicht so schlimm, das ist Übertreibung und Lüge, alles ist Übertreibung, nur die Sehnsucht ist wahr, die kann man nicht übertreiben. Aber selbst die Wahrheit der Sehnsucht ist nicht so sehr ihre Wahrheit, als vielmehr der Ausdruck der Lüge alles übrigen sonst. Es klingt verdreht, aber es ist so. Auch ist es vielleicht nicht eigentlich Liebe wenn ich sage, daß Du mir das Liebste bist; Liebe ist, daß Du mir das Messer bist, mit dem ich in mir wühle. Letter to Milena Jesenská (14 September 1920) http://www.abyssal.de/zitate/liebe.htm Variant translations: In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself. Letters to Milena (1952)

Love, Truth, Time, Heart

“Clouds return and once again, it rains,
Lighting's flash from all sides, and with them,
Some go to Istanbul others turn to the west,
Some shine bright over China and others take care of,
Samarqand, some wandered to Rome, to
Kabul and Kandahar, some lie on Delhi,
Deccan thundering over…
My beloved Allah, may you always make Sindh a land of abundance,
My beloved Allah, may you make prosperous the whole universe.”

Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai book Shah Jo Risalo

Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Shah Jo Risalo
Shah Jo Risalo

Light, Universe

“Now, today is the day we honor, of course, the Presidents, ranging from George Washington, who couldn't tell a lie, to George Bush, who couldn't tell the truth, to Bill Clinton, who couldn't tell the difference.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Monologue, 19 February 2007 (U.S. Presidents Day)
The Tonight Show

Truth

“If you believe that their real intention is to kill you, it isn't unreasonable to believe that they would lie to you.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

Observation made privately, quoted by Time journalist Michael Kramer, The Case for Skepticism http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,956604,00.html Time, (26 December 1988), in the context of doubts about PLO sincerity in hinting about recognition of Israel. 1980s

“Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live,
They lie in wait for you, chicken pox, whooping cough, smallpox,
Malaria, TB, heart disease, cancer, and so on.
Unemployment, hunger, and so on.
Train wrecks, bus accidents, plane crashes, work accidents,
Earthquakes, floods, droughts, and so on.
Heartbreak, alcoholism, and so on.
Nightsticks, prison doors, and so on.
They lie in wait for you, the atom bomb, and so on.
Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live.
They lie in wait for you, socialism, communism, and so on.”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From Welcome (10 September 1961)

Hunger, Alcohol, Disease, Communication

“There is a great directing head of people and things — a Supreme Being who looks after the destinies of the world.
I am convinced that the body is made up of entities that are intelligent and are directed by this Higher Power. When one cuts his finger, I believe it is the intelligence of these entities which heals the wound. When one is sick, it is the intelligence of these entities which brings convalescence. You know that there are living cells in the body so tiny that the microscope cannot find them at all. The entities that give life and soul to the human body are finer still and lie infinitely beyond the reach of our finest scientific instruments. When these entities leave the body, the body is like a ship without a rudder — deserted, motionless and dead.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

As quoted in The Romance and Drama of the Rubber Industry (1936) by Harvey Samuel Firestone
1930s

Life, People, World, Soul

“He was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington", The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches http://books.google.com/books?id=kqMDAAAAQAAJ (1867), ed. John Paul Cited by: William E. Phipps, Mark Twain's Religion https://books.google.nl/books?id=y8e2zLpDngQC&pg=PA18&dq=%22+He+was+ignorant+of+the+commonest+accomplishments+of+youth.+He+could+not+even+lie%22&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVpM31tsbMAhXFshQKHZ32Ci0Q6AEIJTAB#v=onepage&q=%22%20He%20was%20ignorant%20of%20the%20commonest%20accomplishments%20of%20youth.%20He%20could%20not%20even%20lie%22&f=false, Mercer University Press, 2003, p. 18 Richard Locke, Critical Children: The Use of Childhood in Ten Great Novels https://books.google.nl/books?id=38erAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA12&dq=%22+He+was+ignorant+of+the+commonest+accomplishments+of+youth.+He+could+not+even+lie%22&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVpM31tsbMAhXFshQKHZ32Ci0Q6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q=%22%20He%20was%20ignorant%20of%20the%20commonest%20accomplishments%20of%20youth.%20He%20could%20not%20even%20lie%22&f=false, Columbia University Press, p. 12

Youth

“Thought is as much a lie as love or faith.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Love, Faith

“It will be a very hard thing to leave the country that God gave us. Our friends are buried there, and we hate to leave these grounds…. There is something strong for us — that fool band of soldiers that cleared out our lodges and killed our women and children. This is hard on us. There at Sand Creek — White Antelope and many other chiefs lie there; our women and children lie there. Our lodges were destroyed there, and our horses were taken from us there, and I do not feel disposed to go right off to a new country and leave them.”

Little Raven (Arapaho leader) (1810–1889) Southern Arapaho chief

At the signing of the Little Arkansas Treaty (October 1865), as quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 100

Women, God, Hate, Children

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love, Men, God, Children

“It is I who drink lonely Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns, It is I who laugh, it is I who make love And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner, I am saint. I am the beloved and the Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.”

Kamala Surayya (1934–2009) Indian author

Kamala Suraiyya Das

Love, Making love, Feeling, Drink

“I believe we are today crossing the Rubicon, Mr Chairman. In South Africa there can be no turning back. I have a manifesto for the future of our country and we must engage in positive action in the months and years that lie ahead.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

From his National Party Congress Speech in Durban on 15 August 1985

Future, Country

“Blind. The apprentice thought, "we are blind", and he sat down and wrote Blindness to remind those who might read it that we pervert reason when we humiliate life, that human dignity is insulted every day by the powerful of our world, that the universal lie has replaced the plural truths, that man stopped respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow-creatures.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Nobel Lecture (1998)

Life, Truth, World, Universe

“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 (1990) British singer-songwriter

If You Wanna Love Somebody
Lyrics, Jubilee Road

Love, Guy, Perfection, Cry

“"Teddy — I suppose Mummy and Daddy are real, aren't they?"
Teddy said, "You ask such silly questions, David. Nobody knows what 'real' really means. Let's go indoors."
"First I'm going to have another rose!" Plucking a bright pink flower, he carried it with him into the house. It could lie on the pillow as he went to sleep. Its beauty and softness reminded him of Mummy.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (1969)

Beauty, Flowers, Question, Sleep

“And the supreme glory of all this, my love, is to think that maybe this isn't true, neither may I believe it true.

And when lying starts giving us pleasure, let's speak the truth so that we lie to it.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Original: E a suprema glória disto tudo, meu amor, é pensar que talvez isto não seja verdade, nem eu o creia verdadeiro.E quando a mentira comece a dar-nos prazer, falemos a verdade para lhe mentirmos.
Ibid., p. 280
The Book of Disquiet

Love, Pleasure, Truth, Lying