Quotes about lies
page 8

“You will continue to read stories of crookedness and corruption - of policemen who lie and steal, doctors who reap where they do not sew, politicians on the take. Don't be misled. They are news because they are the exceptions.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Reading

“Just because you didn't speak the facts out loud didn't erase their existence. Silence was just a quieter way to lie.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Way, Silence

“The art of agriculture is the realization of some ideal object. lie who practises it has received from others, without considering the reasons on which it is founded, the idea or rule by which he proceeds. The skilful practice of an art consists, therefore, in the adoption of new ideas, in the study of new rules, and in judging the fitness of their being carried into practice.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

Source: The Principles of Agriculture, 1844, Section I: The fundamental principles, p. 2.

Art, Idea, Study

“The more clearly we express it that the whole weight of our future victories will lie on our enemies, the more, in my opinion, will it tend to shorten the war. We have covered a considerable distance towards peace. The Entente no longer has any possibility of beating us economically. Do they think they can beat us militarily, now that our position in the West has become better that it ever was? If the statesmen of the Entente wanted understanding, they ought to have taken advantage of the situation now, when the Reich Chancellor has offered them the hand of understanding. They are playing a wanton game with their misguided peoples. Let the example of Russia be a warning to them. Russia, which offered us the hand of understanding, could have obtained a good peace of understanding if she had not risked this peace through the arrogance of Trotsky. May this struggle bring us victory, but may it also bring the benefits of this victory for Germany's future.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

War, People, Peace, Game

“Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible. But I told the grand jury today and I say to you now that at no time did I ask anyone to lie, to hide or destroy evidence or to take any other unlawful action.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

Televised address on August 17, 1998 CNN transcript http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/17/speech/transcript.html 1990s

Failure, Time, Parting, Personality

“This is your country. These are your houses. These are your cultivated fields and gardens, and your memories lie here. You are not going to leave your country, are you, just because you live hard there or because you have been weighed down by the injustices and humiliation? It has never been typical of the Serbian and Montenegrin people to yield before obstacles and to become demoralized when facing a problem, when coming upon hard times.”

Slobodan Milošević (1941–2006) Yugoslavian and Serbian politician

Kosovo Polje Speech (24 April 1987)

People, Problem, Memory, Time

“It's my lie and I believe in it
It's my lie and I wanted it
It's my bed and I'll bleed in it
It's my bed, and I'll lie
And I sit on the corner
And I drink drown soda
I wanna bomb the whole state of Minnesota”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

"Drown Soda"
Song lyrics, B-sides and compilations

Drink

“It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Truth
Essays (1625)

Hurt

“She hated to lie but she hated arguments even more.”

Jane Yolen book Briar Rose

Source: Briar Rose (1992), Chapter 16 (p. 93)

Hate

“I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts … But our intention is never to lie to you.”

Sean Spicer (1971) American political strategist and former White House Press Secretary and Communications Director for President…

Sean Spicer says the White House will be honest, but can disagree with the facts http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/press-secretary-sean-spicer-says-the-white-house-will-be-honest/news-story/f229fdf7dcc781ec6438cc51031e266f (January 24, 2017)

Thinking

“The calculus is to mathematics no more than what experiment is to physics, and all the truths produced solely by the calculus can be treated as truths of experiment. The sciences must proceed to first causes, above all mathematics where one cannot assume, as in physics, principles that are unknown to us. For there is in mathematics, so to speak, only what we have placed there… If, however, mathematics always has some essential obscurity that one cannot dissipate, it will lie, uniquely, I think, in the direction of the infinite; it is in that direction that mathematics touches on physics, on the innermost nature of bodies about which we know little.”

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment

Elements de la géométrie de l'infini (1727) as quoted by Amir R. Alexander, Geometrical Landscapes: The Voyages of Discovery and the Transformation of Mathematical Practice (2002) citing Michael S. Mahoney, "Infinitesimals and Transcendent Relations: The Mathematics of Motion in the Late Seventeenth Century" in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David C. Lindberg, Robert S. Westman (1990)

Truth, Mathematics, Nature, Thinking

“Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.”

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer

CXXIV, Epitaph on Elizabeth, Lady H—, lines 3-6
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams

Life, Beauty

“Only this time it was just a brief rest, till the stars came out. They stared down with mockery in their twinkles, saying all our sweat and blood really had no meaning in the long eye of time. Nothing we did would be recalled a thousand years from now.
Such thoughts infected us all. No one had any ideals or glory-lust left. We just wanted to get somewhere, lie down, and forget the war.
The war would not forget us.”

Glen Cook The Black Company

Source: The Black Company (1984), Chapter 5, “Harden” (p. 140)

War, Star, Time, Forgetting

“Here are two opposite ideas, one containing truth, the other the lie. Truth-of which there can be but one-is sought. The question is put to a vote. One idea polls 10,000 votes, the other 10,050. Is it possible that 50 votes more or less determine or deny truth? Truth depends neither on majority nor minority; it has its own laws and it succeeds, as has been seen, against all majorities, even though they be crushing.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Truth, Law, Idea, Question

“Like to Diana in her summer-weed,
Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,
Goes fair Samela;
Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed
When wash'd by Arethusa Fount they lie,
Is fair Samela.”

Robert Greene (dramatist) (1558–1592) English author

"Doron's Description of Samela", line 1, from Menaphon; Dyce p. 287.

Summer

“I mean you lie—under a mistake.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 1

“The rainy Pleiads wester,
Orion plunges prone,
The stroke of midnight ceases,
And I lie down alone.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 11, st. 1. More Poems http://www.kalliope.org/vaerktoc.pl?vid=housman/1936 (1936)

“Could man be drunk for ever
With liquor, love, or fights,
Lief should I rouse at mornings
And lief lie down of nights.
But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 10, st. 2. Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

Love, Men, Thinking, Heart

“There remains the problem of Goebbels' reputation. He wore the title of Big Liar (bestowed by Anglo-Saxon propaganda) and yet he never stopped battling for propaganda to be as accurate as possible. He preferred being cynical and brutal to being caught in a lie. He used to say: "Everybody must know what the situation is." He was always the first to announce disastrous events or difficult situations, without hiding anything. The result was a general belief between 1939 and 1942 that German communiqués not only were more concise, clearer and less cluttered, but were more truthful than Allied communiqués (American and neutral opinion) — and, furthermore, that the Germans published all the news two or three days before the Allies. All this is so true that pinning the title of Big Liar on Goebbels must be considered quite a propaganda success.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

"The Characteristics of Propaganda" in Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion : New and Classic Essays (2006) edited by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, p. 48, note 47

Truth, Problem, Success

“You women could make someone fall in love even with a lie.”

Georg Büchner Danton's Death

Act I.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)

Love, Women

“We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (8 May 1945) from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 1344
The Second World War (1939–1945)

God, Justice, Home, Effort

“It is the historic glory of the intellectual class of the West in modern times that, of all the classes which could be called in any sense privileged, it has shown the largest and most consistent concern for the well-being of the classes which lie below it in the social scale.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1974), p. 29

Sense, Time

“A man’s best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet.”

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (1809–1885) British politician and poet

The Men of Old.

“The child who defines a lie as being a "naughty word" knows perfectly well that lying consists in not speaking the truth. He is not, therefore, mistaking one thing for another, he is simply identifying them one with another by what seems to us a quaint extension of the word "lie."”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism

Truth, Lying

“Black propaganda and negative politics do not and will not work here or elsewhere, simply because of one thing - it is based on a lie. As Rex Gatchalian, spokesperson of Senator Grace Poe said earlier, "The recent story being circulated that Senator Chiz had abandoned Senator Grace is baseless and barefaced lie. If the people behind this story plan to drive a wedge between the two candidates, they should stop wasting their time as the two candidates continue to fight the battle together, side-by-side. The Poe-Escudero tandem remains strong despite all the black propaganda hurled against them. It's disgusting that certain groups continue to destroy our candidates - first individually and now as a tandem."”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2015, December 28). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153773916510610/ 2015, Facebook

People, Strong, Time, Fight

“There is a limit to enjoyment, though the sources of wealth be boundless
And the choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.”

Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–1889) English writer and poet

Of Compensation.
Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1849)

Life, Pleasure, Wealth

“I believe that we must always be mindful of this one thing, whatever the trials and the tests ahead. The ultimate strength of our country and our cause will lie not in powerful weapons or infinite resources or boundless wealth, but will lie in the unity of our people.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, October surprise speech (1968)

People, Country, Wealth

“Beyond all conscious lying and falsifying, there is a deeper “organic mendacity.” Here the falsification is not formed in consciousness, but at the same stage of the mental process as the impressions and value feelings themselves: on the road of experience into consciousness. There is “organic mendacity” whenever a man’s mind admits only those impressions which serve his “interest” or his instinctive attitude. Already in the process of mental reproduction and recollection, the contents of his experience are modified in this direction. He who is “mendacious” has no need to lie! In his case, the automatic process of forming recollections, impressions, and feelings is involuntarily slanted, so that conscious falsification becomes unnecessary.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 77-78

Feeling, Lying

“Tell mother that however dogs and samovars might behave themselves, winter comes after summer, old age after youth, and misfortune follows happiness (or the other way around). A person can not be healthy and cheerful throughout life. Losses lie waiting and man can not safeguard against death, even if he be Alexander of Macedonia. One must be prepared for anything and consider everything to be inevitably essential, as sad as that may be.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to his sister Maria Pavlovna Chekhov (November 13, 1898)
Letters

Life, Death, Happiness, Youth

“Would you like to play
With the thought of a friend
In a distant passing stage
While you lie around
With your hands up and out
So resigned you will fall down.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

The Song That Jane Likes
Remember Two Things (1993)

Distant

“A leader isn't made, he is born. And Juka was a leader: he was able to lead the masses, he had that chemistry. People loved him, stood by him, there is no need to lie: everybody gathered around him.”

Jusuf Prazina (1962–1993) Bosnian mobster

Adnan Solaković http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/260/t26008.shtml

Love, People

“To me, Dharma had always been a matter of moral norms, external rules and regulations, do's and don'ts, enforced on life by an act of will. Now I was made to see Dharma as a multi dimensional movement of man's inner law of being, his psychic evolution, his spiritual growth, and his spontaneous building of an outer life for himself and the community in which he lived.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

How I became a Hindu (1982)
Variant: To me, Dharma had always been a matter of moral norms, external rules and regulations, do's and don'ts, enforced on life by an act of will. Now I was made to see Dharma as a multi dimensional movement of man's inner law of being, his psychic evolution, his spiritual growth, and his spontaneous building of an outer life for himself and the community in which he lived.

Life, Law, Communication

“Take my own case: from nursery days we were taught to believe the worst of people…We were drilled, in principle and emphatically, never to believe anyone, never to trust anyone, all people are liars, people are always hypocrites, especially if they are nice to you, everyone can be bought, etc.. Scandal was the sole topic of conversation in Stockau: 'Just to show you what the world is really like.'…I was fiercely determined to have no illusions, to confront even the ugliest reality face to face. I would smuggle The History of Prostitution and such-like books out of the library, disclosures of financial scandals I couldn't understand, books on the crimes of colonial government…And what was the result? I believed every word people told me, they could lie and swindle and make up whatever they liked…Could it be that my insatiable and often so incautious hunger for people who are good, pure, beautiful and holy is in fact the direct result of that early training to despise people?”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Letters 1951-59.

Hunger, People, Books, World

“I had wanted to talk with you about lots of things... I am anxious to get to work for the fall – it is always my best time I had one particular painting – that tree in Lawrence's front yard as you see it when you lie under it on the table – with stars – it looks as tho it is standing on its head – I wanted you to see it..”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

In a letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan, Taos, August 1929; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists, ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 226
1917 - 1929

Star, Tree, Time, Painting

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to have a good memory. If you lie, you're always tripping over your own tie.”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dress, stand, speak properly Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/JJMinisodes#p/u/7/hpLSM73I6ZM ("If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" - Mark Twain)

Truth, Memory

“O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Goblet of Life, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Sadness, Affliction, Suffering

“The spirit of our National Socialist idea has to overpower the spirit of liberalism and false democracy if there is to be a third Reich at all! Deeply rooted in organic life, we have realized that the false belief in the equality of man is the deadly threat with which liberalism destroys people and nation, culture and morals. violating the deepest levels of our being! We have to reject with fanatical zeal the frequent lie that people are basically equal and equal in regard to their influence in the state and their share of power! People are unequal, they are unequal from birth, become more unequal in life and are therefore to be valued unequally in their positions in society and in the state!”

Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Psrty

Source: " Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future https://books.google.com/books?id=fG_oAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA87", by Gregor Strasser - (1926 June 15)

Life, People, Democracy, Idea

“Grace and peace from God to you, respected, honoured, wise clement, gracious and beloved Masters: An exceedingly unfortunate affair has happened to me, in that I have been publicly accused before your worships of having reviled you in unseemly words and, be it said with all respect, of having called you heretics, my gracious rulers of the State. I am so far from applying this name to you, that I should as soon think of calling heaven hell. For all my life I have thought and spoken of you in terms of praise and honour, gentlemen of Abtzell, as I do to-day, and, as God favours me, shall do to the end of my days. But it happened not long ago when I was preaching against the Catabaptists that I used these words: 'The Catabaptists are now doing so much mischief to the upright citizens of Abtzell and are showing so great insolence, that nothing could be more infamous. You see, gentle sirs, with what modesty I grieved on your account, because the turbulent Catabaptists caused you so much trouble. Indeed I suspect that the Catabaptists are the very people who have set this sermon against me in circulation among you, for they do many of those things which do not become true Christians. Therefore, gentle and wise sirs, I beg most earnestly that you will have me exculpated before the whole community, and, if occasion arise, that you will have this letter read in public assembly. Sirs, I assure you in the name of God our Saviour, in these perilous times you have never been our of my thoughts and my solicitious anxiety; and if in any way I shall be able to serve you I will spare no pains to do so. In addition to the fact that I never use such terms even against my enemies, let me say that it never entered my mind to apply such insulting epithets to you, pious and wise sirs. Sufficient of this. May God preserve you in safety, and may He put a curb on these unbridled falsehoods which are being scattered everywhere, which is an evidence of some great peril - and may He hold your worships and the whole state in the true faith of Christ@ Take this letter of mine in good part, for I could not suffer that so base a falsehood against me should lie uncontradicted.”

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, and founder of the Swiss Reformed Churches

Letter to Abtzell February 12, 1526 (vi., 473), ibid, p.250-251

Life, God, Pain, People

“To say he hath spoken to him in a Dream, is no more then to say he dreamed that God spake to him; which is not of force to win beleef from any man, that knows dreams are for the most part naturall, and may proceed from former thoughts; and such dreams as that, from selfe conceit, and foolish arrogance, and false opinion of a mans own goodlinesse, or other vertue, by which he thinks he hath merited the favour of extraordinary Revelation. To say he hath seen a Vision, or heard a Voice, is to say, that he dreamed between sleeping and waking: for in such manner a man doth many times naturally take his dream for a vision, as not having well observed his own slumbering. To say he speaks by supernaturall Inspiration, is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak, or some strong opinion of himself, for which hee can alledge no naturall and sufficient reason. So that though God Almighty can speak to a man, by Dreams, Visions, Voice, and Inspiration; yet he obliges no man to beleeve he hath so done to him that pretends it; who (being a man) may erre, and (which is more) may lie.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Third Part, Chapter 32
Leviathan (1651)

God, Dreams, Nature, Thinking

“I hate the ugly, hate the old,
I hate the lame and weak,
But more than all I hate the dead
That lie so still in their earthen bed
And never dare to rise.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Collected Poems (1990), p. 5

Hate, Dead

“A thousand fools believe a lie, and it’s good as truth.”

Joan Slonczewski book A Door into Ocean

Part 1, “Ashore” - Chapter 5 (p. 28)
A Door into Ocean (1986)

Truth, Fools

“It is the glistening and softly spoken lie; the amiable fallacy; the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partisan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, through which we thank any man who pierces, as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert.”

John Ruskin book The Seven Lamps of Architecture

Source: The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), Chapter II: The Lamp of Truth, section 1.

“How to lie to yourself and thereby to everyone else,
How to keep smiling when you're thinking of killing yourself.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Eight Easy Steps"
So-Called Chaos (2004)

Smile, Thinking

“You're an attorney! It's your duty to lie, conceal, and distort everything, and slander everybody.”

Jean Giraudoux The Madwoman of Chaillot

Vous êtes avocat! Vous avez le devoir au contraire de recourir à toutes les ruses pour défendre vos clients. Au mensonge. A la calomnie. The Madwoman of Chaillot, Act II http://books.google.com/books?id=BGPPV09y26AC&q=%22Vous+%C3%AAtes+avocat+Vous+avez+le+devoir+au+contraire+de+recourir+%C3%A0+toutes+les+ruses+pour+d%C3%A9fendre+vos+clients+Au+mensonge+A+la+calomnie%22&pg=PA142#v=onepage

“Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don't we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

E 65
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)

Books, Light, Reading

“He will reprove the world of sin" —not because men swear and lie and steal and get drunk and murder— "of sin because they believe not on me.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 607.

Men, World

“The long blue days, for his head, for his side, and the little paths for his feet, and all the brightness to touch and gather. Through the grass the little mosspaths, bony with old roots, and the trees sticking up, and the flowers sticking up, and the fruit hanging down, and the white exhausted butterflies, and the birds never the same darting all day long into hiding. And all the sounds, meaning nothing. Then at night rest in the quiet house, there are no roads, no streets any more, you lie down by a window opening on refuge, the little sounds come that demand nothing, ordain nothing, explain nothing, propound nothing, and the short necessary night is soon ended, and the sky blue again all over the secret places where nobody ever comes, the secret places never the same, but always simple and indifferent, always mere places, sites of a stirring beyond coming and going, of a being so light and free that it is as the being of nothing.”

Samuel Beckett book Watt

Part I, p. 39
Watt (1943)

Secret, Flowers, Bird, Tree

“My reality doesn't lie in the part I play, but in the unconscious decision as to what kind of part I assign to myself.”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

I'm not Stiller (1955)

Reality, Decision, Parting

“Where do purple bubbles swim,
But upon the goblet's brim?
Drink not deep, howe'er it glow
Sparkles never lie below.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - Lady Isabelle’s First Song
The Golden Violet (1827)

Drink

“I didn't lie; nobody calls me a liar, I may have increased my age.”

Frank Buckles (1901–2011) United States Army soldier and centenarian

Joking on joining the Army at age 15.
CNN March 8, 2008.

Age

“Next they passed the Sacred Mountain and the highlands where the Mossynoeci live in the mossynes or wooden houses from which they take their name. These people have their own ideas of what is right and proper. What we do as a rule openly in town or market-place they do at home; and what we do in the privacy of our houses they do out of doors in the open street, and nobody thinks the worst of them. Even the sexual act puts no one to blush in this community. On the contrary, like swine in the fields, they lie down on the ground in promiscuous intercourse and are not at all disconcerted by the presence of others. Then again, their king sits in the loftiest hut of all to dispense justice to his numerous subjects. But if the poor man happens to make a mistake in his findings, they lock him up and give him nothing to eat for the rest of the day.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book II. Onward to Colchis, Lines 1015–1029

People, Justice, Home, Mountain

“I want to take you as close as you can get, I want to feel your ecstasy as you feel mine, I want to bridge the final gap between us, I want us to come together in a place where each can know the other does not lie.”

Norman Spinrad book The Void Captain's Tale

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 15 (p. 201)

Feeling

“The source of all imagination is here in our fields, and Creation is beautiful enough for the furthest flights of the poets. What is called realism only falls far from these flights because it is too meticulously concerned with the detail of material; mere inventories of rocks are not poetry; but all the memories of crags and hills and meadows and woods and sky that lie in a sensitive spirit are materials for poetry, only waiting to be taken out, and to be laid before the eyes of such as care to perceive them.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

Patches of Sunlight

Beauty, Imagination, Memory, Waiting

“Lie down baby now don't say a word
There there baby your vision is blurred
Your head is so sore from all of that thinking
I don't want to hurt you now
But I think you're shrinking.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, All This Useless Beauty (1996)
Source: The Other End (of the Telescope)

Thinking, Hurt, Baby

“Hold the door, say please, say thank you.
Don't steal, don't cheat, and don't lie.
I know you got mountains to climb, but always stay humble and kind.
When the dreams you're dreamin' come to you.
When the work you put in is realized.
Let yourself feel the pride, but always stay humble and kind.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Humble and Kind
Song lyrics, Damn Country Music (2015)

Dreams, Feeling, Mountain, Cheating

“There are still a few erect human beings in the socalled world. Proudly and humbly, I say to these human beings:
"O my fellow citizens, many an honest man believes a lie. Though you are as honest as the day, fear and hate the liar. Fear and hate him when he should be feared and hated:now. Fear and hate him were he should be feared and hated:in yourselves.
"Do not hate and fear the artist in yourselves, my fellow citizens. Honour him and love him. Love him truly— do not try to possess him. Trust him as nobly as you trust tomorrow.
"Only the artist in yourselves is more truthful than the night."”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Essay in the anthology The War Poets (1945) edited by Oscar Williams

Love, Hate, Truth, World

“An unsatisfied woman requires luxury, but a woman who is in love with a man will lie on a board.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Love

“How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams — waking dreams, I mean — the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dreams http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/jjdrm10.txt

Life, Happiness, Dreams, Hope

“If financial markets aren't efficient, then what are they? According to the 'fractal market hypothesis', they are highly unstable dynamic systems that generate stock prices which appear random, but behind which lie deterministic patterns.”

Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist

Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 11, Finance And Economic Breakdown, p. 243

Appearance

“How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

War, World

“That original intelligence, say the MAGIANS, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city. Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest of his works, if compared to him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections? His smile and favour renders men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman catholics, about an inch or an inch and a half square, join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part VII - Confirmation of this doctrine
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

Men, Happiness, Children, Secret

“It kind of reminds… I could use the Third Reich, the Big Lie. You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it, and that's their strategy… A hot summer has nothing to do with global warming. Let's keep in mind it was just three weeks ago that people were saying, "Wait a minute; it is unusually cool."”

James Inhofe (1934) American politician

[Heat wave has senator sticking to beliefs, Jim Myers, Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=060722_Ne_A1_Heatw7204]

People, Waiting, Summer

“The path which leads to the mount bf ascension does not lie among flowers; and he who travels it must climb the cold hillside, he must have his feet cut by the pointed rocks, he must faint in the dark valley, he must not seldom have his rest at midnight on the desert sand.”

Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 107.

Travel, Flowers

““For remember,” he said, “that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands—your hands and the hands of the children of all men on this earth. The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.”
His voice rang out over the mountain, more impassioned than any of them had ever heard a voice before, and they stood quiet as standing stones, listening.
“For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy this world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvellous joy.””

Susan Cooper (1935) English fantasy writer

Source: The Dark Is Rising (1965-1977), Silver on the Tree (1977), Chapter 20 “One Goes Alone” (p. 272)

Men, Children, World, Beauty

“Light fills the air, wind is aglow, drink of it, breathe of it, make leafing.
Rainfall sows itself, it grows down through soil to the secret places where stones abide; it brings the strength of them up rootward.
Lie still, molder away, then be again grass.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Harvest of Stars (1993), Ch. 55

Secret, Drink, Light, Grass

“Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference.”

Mort Sahl (1927–2021) American comedian and actor

1987 Politics Source: Quotations Collected by Donald Gudehus: Mort Sahl http://www.chara.gsu.edu/~gudehus/Quotations/quotations_rst.html

Truth

“The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

Source: The Dance of Life http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300671.txt (1923), Ch. 2

Art, Dance, Personality

“The buzzard told the monkey "You're chokin' me
Release your hold and I'll set you free"
The monkey looked the buzzard right dead in the eye and said
"Your story's touching but it sounds like a lie."”

Nat King Cole (1919–1965) American singer and jazz pianist

"Straighten Up And Fly Right" (1937) written with Irving Mills.

Dead

“His face was lit up with a divine look as lie uttered these words. Though not a handsome man, and ungainly in his person, yet in his enthusiasm he seemed the personification of manly beauty, and that sad face of his looked down in kindness upon these ignorant blacks with a grace that could not be excelled. He really seemed of another world.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 296

World, Sadness, Beauty, Personality

“Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth

:lie—
Dust unto dust—
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who

:die
As all men must;

Mourn not your captive comrades who must

:dwell—
Too strong to strive—
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;

But rather mourn the apathetic throng—
The cowed and the meek—
Who see the world’s great anguish and its

:wrong
And dare not speak!”

Ralph Chaplin (1887–1961) American writer, artist and labor activist

Mourn Not The Dead

Men, World, Strong, Dead

“Diophantus shows great Adroitness in selecting the unkown, especially with a view to avoiding an adfected quadratic…. The most common and characteristic of Diophantus' methods is his use of tentative assumptions which is applied in nearly every problem of the later books. It consists in assigning to the unknown a preliminary value which satisfies one or two only of the necessary conditions, in order that, from its failure to satisfy the remaining conditions, the operator may perceive what exactly is required for that purpose…. a third characteristic of Diophantus [is]… the use of the symbol for the unknown in different senses…. The use of tentative assumptions leads again to another device which may be called… the method of limits. This may best be illustrated by a particular example. If Diophantus wishes to find a square lying between 10 and 11, he multiplies these numbers by successive squares till a square lies between the products. Thus between 40 and 44, 90 and 99 no square lies, but between 160 and 176 there lies the square 169. Hence x^2 = \tfrac{169}{16} will lie between the proposed limits.”

James Gow (scholar) (1854–1923) scholar

p, 125
A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884)

Books, Lying, Failure, Problem

“I believe that there are very few scientists who deliberately falsify their work, cheat on their colleagues, or steal from their students. On the other hand, I am afraid that a great many scientists deceive themselves from time to time in their treatment of data, gloss over problems involving systematic errors, or understate the contributions of others. These are the 'honest mistakes' of science. The scientific equivalent of the 'little white lie' of social discourse. The scientific community has no way to protect itself from sloppy or deceptive literature except to learn whose work is suspect as unreliable.”

Lewis M. Branscomb (1926) physicist and science policy advisor

(1994, p. 44) cited in: Leonard Brand (1997) Faith, reason, and earth history
Integrity in Science (1985)

Way, Error, Communication, Literature

“Perfect knowledge of the space an object should occupy in a picture, and of the space that separates one object from another, establishes a new astronomy of things attached to our planet by the magic law of gravity. Canons of the Metaphysical aesthetic lie in the minutely-accurate and precisely-estimated use of surfaces and volumes.... We are building in paint a new Metaphysical psychology of things.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 233
1908 - 1920, On Mystery and Creation, Paris 1913

Law, Knowledge, Painting, Perfection

“I too was filled with a sort of shyness and fear, as I was called to leave 'the world of will and idea' in which I had lived and created, and in whose reality I had believed. But the happy liberating touch of non-objectivity drew me out into the 'desert' where only feeling is real.... and so feeling became the content of my life. It was no 'empty square' I had exhibited but the feeling of non-objectivity. I perceived that the 'thing' and the 'idea' were taken to be equivalents of feeling, and understood the lie of the world of will and idea. Is the milk bottle the symbol of milk? Suprematism is the rediscovery of that pure art which in the course of time, and by an accretion of 'things', had been lost to sight.”

Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935) Russian and Soviet artist of polish descent

As quoted in Artists on Art; from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 453
1921 - 1930

Life, Happiness, World, Fear

“Hey girl I want you to know
I'm gonna miss you so much if you go.
And hey girl I tell you no lie,
Something deep inside of me's going to die
If you say so long, if this is goodbye.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Hey Girl (1963), Co-written with Freddie Scott and Gerry Goffin, recorded by Freddie Scott and Donny Osmond
Song lyrics, Singles

Girl

“I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book II, Ch. 17
Attributed

Lying

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

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Though widely quoted from his speech in the House of Commons, (1 November 1976) published in Hansard, House of Commons, 5th series, vol. 918, col. 976.; this is actually a very old paraphrase of a statement of the 19th century minister Charles Spurgeon: "A lie travels round the world while truth is putting on her boots." Even in the paraphrased form Callaghan used, it was in widely familiar, many years prior to his use of it, and is evidenced to have been published in that form at least as early as 1939.
Misattributed

Truth, World

“A major component of the western myth is the belief that myth is a primitive and mistaken way of thinking about the world that has been replaced by science. Commonly, the word “myth” is now used to mean an illusion or a lie… Enlightened moderns are accustomed to looking at the queer beliefs of the Mayas or the Tassaday and seeing them as mythical. But we look on our own belief systems as rational and rooted in the realities of politics and economics. As Joseph Campbell says: “Myth is other people’s religion.””

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 20

People, World, Religion, Way

“What matters it, that, all around,
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?”

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet

To Imagination (1846)

Winter, Sun

“Here’s what I want you to know: We got through that tumultuous time. We revved up the engine of imagination and innovation. We turned back a tide of intolerance and embraced inclusion. The we who did those things were more than those in power who wanted to change course. It was millions of ordinary citizens, especially young people, who voted, marched, and organized. You may have heard that things didn’t exactly go as planned, but you know what? I’m doing okay. I’ve gotten to spend time with my family, especially my amazing grandchildren. Long walks in the woods. Organizing my closets, right? I won’t lie — Chardonnay helped a little.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Post Presidential Election, Wellesley Commencement Speech (2017)

People, Family, Imagination, Change

“Within the Veil was he born, said I; and there within shall he live, — a Negro and a Negro's son. Holding in that little head — ah, bitterly! — the unbowed pride of a hunted race, clinging with that tiny dimpled hand — ah, wearily! — to a hope not hopeless but unhopeful, and seeing with those bright wondering eyes that peer into my soul a land whose freedom is to us a mockery and whose liberty is a lie.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. XI: Of the Passing of the First-Born

Hope, Soul, Freedom

“If he's happy to sit on an electric chair and tell a truth or a lie then I'm happy to sit on an electric chair and we'll see what the outcome is, because I've got no doubt in my mind what happened.”

Billy Davies (1964) Scottish association football player and manager

Jan 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jan/31/nigel-clough-billy-davies-assault-allegation
Billy seems to be using the expression "electric chair" when he means a lie detector.

Happiness, Truth

“When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken—it may be fair words shall prevail.”

Rudyard Kipling book The Second Jungle Book

The Law of the Jungle, Stanza 6.
The Second Jungle Book (1895)

“b>Don't let me die in an automobile
I wanna lie in an open field
Want the snakes to suck my skin
Want the worms to be my friends
Want the birds to eat my eyes
As here I lie
The clouds fly by

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

"The End; Live in New York" (1970), "The End; Live at The Hollywood Bowl" (1968)

Bird, Flying

“My mom thinks my new daughter is exceptionally bright, because now she will lie on the floor and talk to the ceiling fan. I said, "Mom, Uncle Harold does that and y'all call him an alcoholic."”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

You Might Be a Redneck If… (1993)

Alcohol, Moms, Thinking, Daughters

“My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead; my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more; thy bow shall lie in thy hall, unstrung!
Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the desert; terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy voice was a stream after rain; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm; they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain; like the moon in the silence of night; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid.
Narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode! With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before. Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass, which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty Morar.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

"The Songs of Selma"
The Poems of Ossian

War, Peace, Art, Tear

“Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything — high and low and, most especially, high — lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933. […] Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie the barbarians. Fail to keep them at bay, and everything burns.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Introduction
2010s, 2013, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics (2013)

History, Communication

“[Twilight] argues that true love will triumph in the end, which may or may not be true, but if it's a lie, it's the most beautiful lie we have.”

John Green (1977) American author and vlogger

John Reviews Twilight and New Moon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkoBoF9FDXg YouTube

Love, Beauty

“The most serious problems lie in the financial sphere, where the economy’s debt overhead has grown more rapidly than the ‘real’ economy’s ability to carry this debt. … The essence of the global financial bubble is that savings are diverted to inflate the stock market, bond market and real estate prices rather than to build new factories and employ more labor.”

Michael Hudson (economist) (1939) American economist

Financial Capitalism v. Industrial Capitalism http://michael-hudson.com/1998/09/financial-capitalism-v-industrial-capitalism/ (September 3, 1998) Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Problem

“It has been raining for a whole month and I lie in bed in the morning like one drunk or ill, refusing to get up. Suddenly I hear a chorus of birds announcing a clear day. Quickly I pull aside the curtain, push open the window and see the beautiful sun shining and glistening and the forest looks like having a bath. Ah, is this not happiness?”

Jin Shengtan (1610–1661) Chinese writer

"Thirty-three Happy Moments"

Happiness, Beauty, Bird, Sun

“I started looking into these groups in America, campaigns groups who want to put stickers on the front of all school science text books saying that Evolution is only one possible theory of life on earth. Now, although this seems like a stupid idea at first, second, and thirty ninth glance, look at it once more. Give it that fortieth view. Because it's brilliant. Let's have stickers on the front of all books! Slap one on the front of the Bible saying "Of course this could all be bullsh*t. Maybe he never died! Perhaps he opened a donkey sanctuary. He had a clear bond with donkeys." Or slap one on the Theory of Gravity! "Look, that's just one man's opinion. Maybe we could all fly! R. Kelly believed it so. Why would he lie to us? What does he possibly stand to gain?"”

John Oliver (1977) English comedian

John Oliver: Terrifying Times (2008)

Life, Books, Stupidity, School

“That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude.”

Alexander Haig (1924–2010) former U.S. States Secretary of State and U.S. Army general

Defending himself against accusations of lying in 1983. Quoted by Rutledge, Leigh W., "Would I Lie To You?", Plume, 1998, ISBN 0-452-27931-3, p. 81.
This turn of phrase origninated with Winston Churchill in his 1906 election campaign.

“Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Lucy, Act II, sc. xiii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Women, Men

“Christians don't steal or lie, they don't get divorced or have abortions. If the Ten Commandments were followed by everyone we would be able to fire half the police force and in six months the prisons would be all half empty.”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

"The Fish Gate" sermon (September 2, 2007)

“People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

B 41
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771)

People, Winter

“Physical things are perceptual things. They also arise within the act… It is in the operation with these perceptual or physical things which lie within the physiological act short of consummation that the peculiar human intelligence is found.”

George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist

George Herbert Mead (1927;314), as cited in: Marcus Persson (2007), Mellan människor och ting. En interaktionistisk analys av samlandet, p. 19

Intelligence

“The British male has no interest in women. You could get all your clothes off and lie on the sofa and go "Come and get me baby" and they go, "Wanna cuppa tea?"”

Alice Evans (1971) British actress

John Parry article quoting an Evans interview done for The Sunday Times in The Argus July 2002 "Think of it this way".

Women, Tea, Baby, Clothes

“There is a dangerous deception within international organizations, called Participation of local communities. This is essentially based on a lie. Communities are invited to participate on the terms of the donor who has the money. Unless all the choices and decisions are owned and made by the communities, there can be no authentic lasting development.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All Will be Well (2004)

Money, Communication, Decision

“I have been a Member of Parliament for 18 years. I have been a member of the Government for 14 years, of the Cabinet for ten years and Prime Minister since 1990. When the curtain falls it is time to get off the stage and that is what I propose to do. I shall, therefore, advise my parliamentary colleagues that it would be appropriate for them to consider the selection of a new leader of the Conservative Party to lead the party through Opposition through the years that lie immediately ahead.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Major's Speech", The Times, 3 May 1997, p. 2.
Statement in Downing Street on 2 May 1997 following the general election in which the Conservative Party was heavily defeated. Major was just about to resign as Prime Minister and announced his decision to stand down as party leader simultaneously.
1990s, 1997

Time

“Don't say nothing bout the old house. Cos I burned it to the ground. And when the darkness comes, I lie awake. Playing lost and found”

Pete Yorn (1974) American musician

All At Once
Song lyrics

Housing

Quotes about lies page 8

Quotes about lies
page 8