The Near East (1968), p. 31
General sources
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
As quoted in The Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/16/sister_souljah_moments/ (16 September 2007)
2000s, 2007
“When you tell a lie often enough, you become unable to distinguish it from the truth.”
Other
Compare sourced quote set forth above: "The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it."
Attributed to Goebbels in Publications Relating to Various Aspects of Communism http://books.google.com/books?id=iLAnAQAAMAAJ&q=%22If+you+repeat+a+lie+often+enough,+people+will+believe+it.%22&dq=%22If+you+repeat+a+lie+often+enough,+people+will+believe+it.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=U4gPUvObG4qMyQHlhYAw&ved=0CGQQ6AEwCQ (1946), by United States Congress, House Committee on Un-American Activities. No reliable source has been located, and this is probably simply a further variation of the Big Lie idea.
Variants:
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth.
If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
Attributed in The Sack of Rome (2006) by Alexander Stille, p. 14, and also attributed in A World Without Walls: Freedom, Development, Free Trade and Global Governance (2003) by Mike Moore, p. 63.
Misattributed
“An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.”
Source: The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), Ch. 21: The Reversion of the Beast Folk
The Almost Perfect State (1921)
Context: No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth, have a perfectly corking time for a few years. The most wonderful governmental system in the world does not attract us, as a system; we are after a system that scarcely knows it is a system; the great thing is to have the largest number of individuals as happy as may be, for a little while at least, some time before they die.
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
“No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.”
As Lily
Unsourced variant: No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
“No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.”
Lily
Unsourced variant: No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
