“I think housework is far more tiring and frightening than hunting is, no comparison, and yet after hunting we had eggs for tea and were made to rest for hours, but after housework people expect one to go on just as if nothing special had happened.”

—  Nancy Mitford

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Nancy Mitford photo
Nancy Mitford 9
British writer 1904–1973

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The earliest attestation is: A representative of the "Löwe faction" also aptly remarked: "There is never more lying than before the elections, during the war and after the hunt.", in: Im neuen Reich. Wochenschrift für das Leben des deutschen Volkes in Staat, Wissenschaft und Kunst. Volume 9 (1879), 1st semivolume, p. 199 books.google http://books.google.de/books?hl=de&id=TO0aAAAAYAAJ&q=jagd.
The witticism was first attributed to Bismarck in printed form, as far as it is clear, in Zeitschrift für Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten. Im Auftrage der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten. Volume 2 (1904) p. 283 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=ZwETAQAAMAAJ&q=jagd: "[...] when Bismarck would have repeated his well-known word about the instances in which the most lying occurs, out of the three mentioned by him (before an election, during a war, after a hunt), he would certainly have to put pelvic inflammatory disease in women first."
Before this, it always went without naming an author as a "witticism" in 1895 http://books.google.de/books?id=stoYAQAAIAAJ&q=gelogen, as "the proverbial answer to the question when the most lying occurs" in 1897 http://books.google.de/books?id=ZkoxAQAAMAAJ&q=gelogen, as "an old story" in 1898 http://books.google.de/books?id=LzkZAAAAYAAJ&q=%22einer+jagd%22 and as "what one usually says" in 1901 http://books.google.de/books?id=sjsZAAAAYAAJ&q=gelogen. Die Neue Zeit - Wochenschrift der deutschen Sozialdemokratie even spoke of a "self-admission" of Bismarck in 1906 http://books.google.de/books?id=YtY5AQAAMAAJ&q=gelogen; however, the fellow social democratic magazine Das freie Wort attributed it to an unnamed representative of the Zentrumspartei in that same year http://books.google.de/books?id=LjQ8AQAAIAAJ&q=%22mehr+gelogen%22.
Misattributed
Original: "Es wird niemals so viel gelogen wie vor der Wahl, während des Krieges und nach der Jagd."

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