Quotes about lies (1933 quotes, page 20)

“As a general rule philosophy is like stirring mud or not letting a sleeping dog lie. It is an attempt to deny, circumvent or otherwise escape from the consequences of the interlacing of the roots of things with one another.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Philosophy
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XX - First Principles

Sleep , Dogs

“So much of the uncanny—or the holy, for that matter—is inward experience. As such, testimony about it tends to be tainted. People lie. People delude themselves, or others. People are swayed or frightened or convinced they have seen things they have not. People are, frankly, sometimes simply mad.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The Hallowed Hunt

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 15 (pp. 263-264)

People , Madness

“She wasn’t actually going to lie, but there was…well, there might be an element of flexibility.”

Genevieve Cogman The Invisible Library

Source: The Invisible Library (2015), Chapter 23 (p. 322)

“Look up! the proof is round you written large;
Your Faith is in the balance wanting found;
Your shipless seas confess it; bridgeless streams;
Your wasted wealth of ore, and moor, and bay.
Beneath the Upas shade of Faith depraved
All things lie dead -- wealth, comfort, freedom, power.”

Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902) Irish poet and critic

"The Sisters; or, Weal in Woe: An Irish Tale" in The Sisters, Inisfail, and Other Poems (1861), pp. 3-42.

Freedom , Sea , Faith , Dead

“Socialism is founded on a lie -- the premise that man knows more than he in fact does know.”

Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) American academic

Leonard Read Journals, September 18, 1959 https://history.fee.org/leonard-read-journal/1959/leonard-e-read-journal-september-1959

“Getting out was a bit like making your way through a jungle: if you know the way and all the hazards that lie before you the chances of getting through are good; if you know nothing the tendency is to take chances based on intuition, with unknown results.”

Tim Jenkin (1948) Prison escapee and author

Escape from Pretoria https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files/escape_from_pretoria.pdf, p. 35.

Chance , Way

“I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never—""You lie," he cried,
And ran on.”

Stephen Crane book The Black Riders and Other Lines

Source: The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), XXIV

“Unwind my riddle.
Cruel as hawks the hours fly;
Wounded men seldom come home to die;
The hard waves see an arm flung high;
Scorn hits strong because of a lie;
Yet there exists a mystic tie.
Unwind my riddle.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

Source: Epigraph in " The Clan of No Name http://web.archive.org/20040803101258/www.geocities.com/stephen_crane_us/clannoname.html" (1899); published in the anthology Wounds in the Rain (1900)

Home , Strong , Flying , Men

“No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

The Near East (1968), p. 31
General sources

“I know the Jesuits are very cunning at these tricks; but if you have no more hold of your printers, than that the press must lie thus open to their corruption.”

William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury

Source: Letter to William Chillingworth (15 September 1637), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume V—History of His Chancellorship, &c (1853), p. 184

“You can be a namby-pamby leftie, a gun-toting neo-con or a soft, indecisive moderate. I really don’t care. Just don’t lie to me.
As an aside, I’ve never once claimed to be “offended.””

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

Then again, I’m a grown man.
Like all great character assassination attempts, implication is much more effective than accusation.
Listen, I’m not somebody who really cares about polarization, political correctness or even what context can be fit into proper 40-character formatting. People can hold any opinion that they want on any subject that they choose. Just don’t proactively lie to people. It’s a simple request really, and one that we don’t hear nearly enough.
It’s for that same reason that I’d rather engage the president over his current policy failures than crazy conspiracy theories. By that same token, I would expect many of the HuffPo readers to hate me for plenty of things that I’ve actually said in the past as opposed to those made up by weak, lefty, online-commentating wieners.
Go ahead and take your foot off the “civility” gas pedal for all I care. We should all be replacing it with “honesty.”
Source: 13 February 2012 on Huffington Post https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cpac-2012-rap-video_b_1273779

Indecision

“Calling socialism, under which the popular masses are the masters of everything, "totalitarianism" is, ultimately, a preposterous lie which identifies the most progressive idea that reflects the demands of the popular masses with the reactionary idea of fascist rulers.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Source: "Abuses of socialism are intolerable," article in Central Committee magazine Kulloja (March 1, 1993)

Idea

“It’s always better to tell a half-truth than a half-lie.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 13, “Autumn Leaves” (p. 277)

Truth

“They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do just as well—you just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Source: Revelations (1993)

Marijuana , Effort

“Few desire to know the truth of what is happening in our state’s abortion clinics. All of the outrage, all of the noise is directed at one thing: silencing the uncomfortable truth. It’s either willful ignorance or a decision to partner with the abortion industry. When I started in public office, I was intellectually pro-life, but now I have come to see that the life issue is truly the issue of our time. The depth of evil that exists to protect this lie prevents the states from protecting children. How we determine the answer to this issue is what will determine where our nation will end up. Unless the truth prevails, abortion will destroy us as a nation.”

Phill Kline (1959) American politician

Source: Ask the Attorney: An Interview with Former Kansas Attorney General and Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline http://lifelegalgiving.com/ask-the-attorney-an-interview-with-former-kansas-attorney-general-and-johnson-county-district-attorney-phill-kline/ (1 August 2009)

Decision , Life , Silence , Children

“They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend that they listen to us. But they clearly don’t listen to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie. We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”

Greta Thunberg (2003) Swedish climate change activist

Source: 'Blah, blah, blah’: Greta Thunberg lambasts leaders over climate crisis, by Damian Carrington, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/28/blah-greta-thunberg-leaders-climate-crisis-co2-emissions, (28 September 2021)

People , Truth , Science , Hope

“The spirit of our age is Democracy. All for the people, and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people… My nation will rise, called to resurrection by the eternal principles of the law of nature and of nature’s God. It will not lie in the grave longer than the holy number three, and will require your magnanimity by becoming the corner-stone of national independence on the European Continent.”

Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894) Hungarian politician

Source: In front of Ohio's legislators on 7 february, 1852.

Democracy , God , People , Age

“A time came when the Catholics, having long relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and restorers of their Church had been murderers and abetters of murder, and that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims were insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot; the plot was a reality; the medal is fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard that it was over. These things were repeated so often that they have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in their religion by the errors or the vices of Popes. Möhler was pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, which were published only last year, he said that the Catholics, as such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved. Such things will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)

Sincerity , Life , Men , Truth

““We lie best when we lie to ourselves.””

Stephen King book IT

“The mistake we make after we have chased away the lie is because we love the truth so much, we make for her a beautiful and very comfortable bed.”

- Goa

Beauty , Truth , Love

“The origin of most neurotic fears can be traced to childhood. The seeds of fear may lie dormant in childhood in the subconscious mind. They sprout forth after some time during some period of crisis or stress.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

Conquest of Fear (c-1960)

Childhood , Fear , Time

“You lie so well
I could never even tell
what were facts in your artful rearranging But I came back for more
and you laughed in my face and you rubbed it in
cause I’m a Labrador
and I run
when the gun
drops the dove again”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"Labrador" · Video (a shot for shot recreation of scenarios from her first hit video with 'Til Tuesday, "Voices Carry") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1cX-wgMdM
Song lyrics, Charmer (2012)

Art

“When in doubt, follow the money trail. People could lie, motives could be disguised, even acts could be misunderstood. Money was as constant as human nature.”

Charles Sheffield book Proteus In The Underworld

Source: Behrooz Wolf (aka The Proteus Trilogy), Proteus In The Underworld (1995), Chapter 11 (pp. 148-149)

Money , People , Motivation , Nature

“All men lie to you. When they tell you that they love you, it’s a lie… All men hate you, ladies, they hate you. Because you prevent men from thriving… This is why all the crimes committed in the world are women’s fault.”

Vladimir Zhirinovsky (1946–2022) Russian politician and political activist

"The Best of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Clown Prince of Russian Politics" in VICE https://www.vice.com/en/article/xd5q47/the-best-of-vladimir-zhirinovsky-russias-craziest-politician

Hate , World , Love , Women