
“Which is better, truth that is a lie or the lie that is truth?”
Source: The Judges
" The Grandmother http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Alfred_Lord_Tennyson/14415", st. 8 (1864)
“Which is better, truth that is a lie or the lie that is truth?”
Source: The Judges
“The truth is balance, but the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.”
Review of Selected Essays by Simone Weil, The New York Review of Books (1 February 1963)
Context: The need for truth is not constant; no more than is the need for repose. An idea which is a distortion may have a greater intellectual thrust than the truth; it may better serve the needs of the spirit, which vary. The truth is balance, but the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.
Boris Johnson insists he is 'all behind' May over Brexit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41289080 BBC News (16 September 2017)
2017
“In the lie of truth lies the truth.”
“Truth and Lie,” p. 66
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Stone and a Word”
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
Pablo Picasso said something very similar. Perhaps it is the source? From Herschel B. Chipp’s Theories of Modern Art: "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand."
Disputed
“It’s always better to tell a half-truth than a half-lie.”
Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 13, “Autumn Leaves” (p. 277)