“There are no pessimists; there are only realists and liars.”
Paul Virilio (1932–2018) French philosopher
Quotes about liar
A collection of quotes on the topic of liar, truth, man, making.
Quotes about liar
“When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author
TIME (18 July 1983)
Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita
Book Two in 'Margarita', P/V, opening lines of Book Two
Variant: Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar’s vile tongue be cut out!
Source: The Master and Margarita (1967)
“She'll come back as fire
burn all the liars
leave a blanket of ash on the ground”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.
Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)
George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general
Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.
Variant: Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt thou the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love
Source: Hamlet
Charles Péguy (1873–1914) French poet, essayist, and editor
"Lettre du Provincial" (21 December 1899)
Basic Verities, Prose and Poetry (1943)
Charlie Parker (1920–1955) American jazz saxophonist and composer
As quoted in Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It (1955) edited by by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, p. 379
“The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Mark Twain and I by Opie Read
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) Polish-born Jewish-American author
Source: The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer
“No one believes a liar. Even when she's telling the truth.”
Sara Shepard (1973) Author
Source: Heartless
Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author
Big Lies in Politics http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/05/22/big_lies_in_politics/page/full, 22 May 2012. <br class="br">2010s
“Success has always been a great liar”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
“Maggie, we're through with lies and liars in this house. Lock the door.”
Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Whoever said that childhood is the happiest time of your life is a liar, or a fool.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Midnight Palace
Source: The Midnight Palace
“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist
Source: The Collected Works
“A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.”
Daniel Wallace (1959) American author
Source: The Kings and Queens of Roam
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Four Riddles, no. II
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)
“In either case the orator should bear clearly in mind throughout his whole speech what the fiction is to which he has committed himself, since we are apt to forget our falsehoods, and there is no doubt about the truth of the proverb that a liar should have a good memory.”
Vtrubique autem orator meminisse debebit actione tota quid finxerit, quoniam solent excidere quae falsa sunt: verumque est illud quod vulgo dicitur, mendacem memorem esse oportere.
Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor
Book IV, Chapter II, 91; translation by H. E. Butler
Compare: "Liars ought to have good memories", Algernon Sidney, Discourses on Government, chapter ii, section xv.
Alternate translation for "solent excidere quae falsa sunt": False things tend to be forgotten
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
“The saloon is a liar. It promises good cheer and sends sorrow.”
Billy Sunday (1862–1935) American evangelist and baseball player
Source: Billy Sunday Quotes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAfeTcqGTJA / www.famousquotes.com
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
Drafts on the history of the Church (Section 3). Yahuda Ms. 15.3, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel. 2006 Online Version at Newton Project http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/THEM00220
Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments
Jace to Alec, pg. 138
The Mortal Instruments, City of Glass (2009)
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
The Two Pioneers
1890s, Quintessence Of Ibsenism (1891; 1913)
“An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.”
Mark Twain book The Private History of a Campaign That Failed
"The Private History of a Campaign That Failed", The Century, Vol. 31, No. 2, December 1885 http://books.google.com/books?id=-1UiAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA193. Anthologized in The American Claimant, and Other Stories and Sketches http://books.google.com/books?id=1T00Sc_cVYIC (1898)
Ransom Riggs book Miss Peregrine's Home of Peculiar Children
Source: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011), Chapter 4, Page 92
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
Of Humanity -->
A short Schem of the true Religion
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.428
“The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!”
Tennessee Williams The Rose Tattoo
Rosa, Act Three, Scene Three
The Rose Tattoo (1951)
“The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Quoted in Victor J. Stenger (1990), Physics and Psychics
Misattributed
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmastime (1898) http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly, as quoted in The Bully Pulpit : A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations (2002) by H. Paul Jeffers, p. 22 <br class="br">1890s
Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Psrty
To Dr. Martin (9 December 1932). Quoted in "Hitler: The Missing Years", p. 190 by Ernst Hanfstaengl, John Toland - 1994
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 435
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, "I am rich," when the proper designation for his condition would be "poor." He misuses fixed conventions by means of arbitrary substitutions or even reversals of names. If he does this in a selfish and moreover harmful manner, society will cease to trust him and will thereby exclude him. What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. It is in a similarly restricted sense that man now wants nothing but truth: he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth. He is indifferent toward pure knowledge which has no consequences; toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The liar is a person who uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make something which is unreal appear to be real. He says, for example, "I am rich," when the proper designation for his condition would be "poor." He misuses fixed conventions by means of arbitrary substitutions or even reversals of names. If he does this in a selfish and moreover harmful manner, society will cease to trust him and will thereby exclude him. What men avoid by excluding the liar is not so much being defrauded as it is being harmed by means of fraud. Thus, even at this stage, what they hate is basically not deception itself, but rather the unpleasant, hated consequences of certain sorts of deception. It is in a similarly restricted sense that man now wants nothing but truth: he desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth. He is indifferent toward pure knowledge which has no consequences; toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined.
“Liars … when they speak the truth they are not believed.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian
As quoted in Life and Letters of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered at Oxford 1893-4 (1899) by James Anthony Froude
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."
1960s
Context: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology
"Psych Sleuth : Margaret Singer has made history delving into the psychology of brainwashing", in The San Francisco Chronicle (26 May 2002) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/26/CM67534.DTL&ao=all <br class="br">2002 <br class="br">Context: Just look up to the sky and talk to God yourself. You don't need an organization to do that. …They're all the same, really, these groups — they prey on the most lonely, vulnerable people they can find, cage you with your own mind through guilt and fear, cut you off from everyone you knew before, and when they're done doing that, they don't need armed guards to keep you. You're afraid that if you leave, your parents will die, you will die, your life will be ruined. Flim-flam men, pimps, sharpsters — that's what they are. Liars. Tricksters. It's been the same ever since Eve got the apple, and I doubt it will ever change. A real religion is truthful, you can come or go from it if you wish. And most importantly, there is no one leader claiming he is a god. Big, big difference.
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
Exod. 23.21. And we must believe also that by his incarnation of the Virgin he came in the flesh not in appearance only but really & truly , being in all things made like unto his brethren (Heb. 2 17) for which reason he is called also the son of man. <br class="br">Drafts on the history of the Church (Section 3). Yahuda Ms. 15.3, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel. 2006 Online Version at Newton Project http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/THEM00220
David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon
Revolution by Number
Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist
Idler Magazine, Volume 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=vMYaAAAAYAAJ&q=exceptionally+good+liar#search_anchor|The
“You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.”
Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind
Source: The Name of the Wind
“I'm a liar. And I can't stop thinking about boys.”
Meg Cabot book Pants on Fire
Source: Pants on Fire
“People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
“I prefer to think that I'm liar in a way that's uniquely my own.”
Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes
Variant: Actually," said Jace, "I prefer to think that I'm a liar in a way that's uniquely my own.
Source: City of Ashes
Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young
Source: Only the Good Spy Young
“We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.”
E. Lockhart book We Were Liars
Source: We Were Liars
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Source: Humboldt From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
“All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.”
John Irving book The World According to Garp
Source: The World According to Garp
“Note to self: Rachel Morgan is a totally awesome liar.”
Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young
Source: Only the Good Spy Young
“Of course, the liar often imagines that he does no harm as long as his lies go undetected.”
Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist
Source: Lying
Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker
On his plans for his autobiography Laterna Magica, as quoted in "Who is he really?" http://www.ingmarbergman.se/universe.asp?guid=4F72F9D3-43BB-405D-B42B-3D091B8FAF3A <br class="br">Source: The Magic Lantern
“The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer
"Helping the Girls with their Income Taxes" <!-- p. 72 -->
The Illiterate Digest (1924)
Context: The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make one out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a Crook or a Martyr.
“All liars… lie to protect themselves, to shield their egos from the raw pain of truth.”
Aminatta Forna book The Memory of Love
Source: The Memory of Love
“Everyone's a liar. Everyone I've ever known.”
Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer
“Denying the undeniable just makes you sound like a fool as well as a liar.”
Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young
Source: Only the Good Spy Young
“In a world of lies and liars, an honest work of art is always an act of social responsibility.”
Robert McKee (1941) American academic specialised in seminars for screenwriters
Source: Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
“LIBERTY!
FREEDOM!
DEMOCRACY!
True anyhow no matter how many
Liars use those words.”
Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist
“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”
Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina
Source: Anna Karenina
“All men are liars. All women are liars, too.”
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Burn for Me
Philip Pullman book Northern Lights
Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 15 : The Dæmon Cages
Context: Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction.
“You who speak languages, you are such liars.”
Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist