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Lies Quotes

The prudent man is always sincere, and feels horror at the very thought of exposing himself to the d...

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Picture of Adam Smith
Adam SmithThe Theory of Moral Sentiments

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.

The I you know isn’t me, you said, truthtelling liarMy roots are not my chainsAnd I to you:   Whose ...

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Picture of Adrienne Rich
Adrienne RichTonight No Poetry Will Serve

Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

Picture of Adrienne Rich
Adrienne RichWomen and Honor: Some Notes on Lying

To know when to use the truth is the essence of successful deception

Please don't be too prejudiced against the poor thing because she's a liar. I do really believe that...

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I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use ...

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I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.

Don't lies in the end put us on the path to truth? And don't my stories, true or false, point to the...

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Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stori...

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I prefer to make up my own quotes and attribute them to very smart people, so that I can use them to...

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Because instant and credible information has to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswor...

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Sociopaths are attracted to politics because the see it as a sphere in which you can be ruthless and...

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It felt like all the truth got whitewashed with fake happiness," she said, "only it was not happy an...

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Picture of Amy Tan
Amy TanThe Valley of Amazement

...I was like a bird, my wings once carried on a wind of lies. I would beat those wings to stay alof...

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Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

Lies cannot nourish or protect you. Only freedom from fear, freedom from lies, can make us beautiful...

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Picture of Anne Lamott
Anne LamottGrace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

But I lived a lie. I lived it out of anger. This is what I am trying to tell you. I have lived lies....

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Picture of Anne Rice
Anne RiceBlood And Gold

I never lie," I said offhand. "At least not to those I don't love.

Truth is a risky proposition. It's the nature of mediocre human beings to believe that lies are nece...

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Picture of Anne Rice
Anne RiceThe Wolf Gift

I am stuffing your mouth with yourpromises and watching you vomit them out upon my face.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

My correspondence has certainly the charm of variety, and the humbler are usually the more interesti...

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It requires as much caution to tell the truth as to conceal it.

The Jews are the scum of the earth, but they are also great masters in lying.

[Internationa] Aid is just another praetorian business enterprise.

There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another—if me...

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I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like t...

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Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no...

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There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.

The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.

Well we're waiting here in Allentown,For the Pennsylvania we never found,For the promises our teache...

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light makes shadow. Truth makes lies.

It’s not a lie,” Shallan said, “if everyone understands and knows what it means.”“Mm. Those are some...

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She said that you--" "I don't care what she said." I stand up. "Everyone lies." "Hey," he says softl...

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How do I know you're not crazy?" she asks. "How do I know you're not the craziest dude I've ever met...

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Could there be a snare in too much beauty? Could there be too much expectation of good, and too much...

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Picture of C. J. Cherryh
C. J. CherryhFortress of Owls

[If a man] postpone[s] any open acknowledgement... that his own faith is in direct opposition to the...

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He can be made to take a positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inco...

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There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.

Picture of Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Carlos Ruiz ZafónThe Shadow of the Wind

The fact is that nothing is more difficult to believe than the truth; conversely, nothing seduces li...

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Maybe it's true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar.

What would you do if you saw something nobody else could see?”The tape gun fell out of Luke’s hand, ...

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The best lies are based on thetruth, at least in part

When to people tell the same lie...""They are working together," Will finished

Picture of Cassandra Clare
Cassandra ClareClockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess

Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave on...

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It was hard to live normally when you were constantly pretending you didn't see what was going on in...

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When no one you know tells the truth, you learn to see under the surface.

The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.

I have, he went on, betrayed myself withbelief, deluded myself with lovetricked myself with sex.the ...

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Picture of Charles Bukowski
Charles BukowskiPlay the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

the lies of centuries, the lies of love,the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christwill be your bedmat...

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Picture of Charles Bukowski
Charles BukowskiPlay the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

...lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lie...

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Picture of Charles Dickens
Charles DickensGreat Expectations

Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.

Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had bee...

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If I had seen pictures of people eating each other on the wall, I would've told him I was into canni...

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Picture of Chelsea Handler
Chelsea HandlerMy Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

Men lie the most,women tell the biggest lies.

As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phr...

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During the Senate debate on the intervention in Iraq, Sen. Clinton made considerable use of her back...

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Having confronted the world with little except a battered typewriter and a certain resilience, he ca...

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Many things in this period have been hard to bear, or hard to take seriously. My own profession went...

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Picture of Christopher Hitchens
Christopher HitchensFor the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports

During the 1992 election I concluded as early as my first visit to New Hampshire that Bill Clinton w...

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[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.

Sarcasm is when you tell someone the truth by lying on purpose.

It's exhausting, the energy it takes to unknow a truth.

Now, I don't believe that a god exists. I think that gods are creation of men, by men, and for men. ...

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You’ve always got me”“Always?”“Didn’t I just say so?”“Yes”“Am I liar? ““No.” I lied.

The stories get passed on and the truth gets passed over. As the sayin goes. Which I reckon some wou...

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Picture of Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthyNo Country for Old Men

Do you think I lie to you?No.But you think I might lie to you about dying.Yes.Okay. I might. But we'...

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Humanity is a huge aggregate lie, and a huge lie is less than a small truth. Humanity is less, far l...

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.

The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with l...

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Because we’ve been lied to and lied to, and it hurts to be lied to. It’s ultimately just about that ...

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Picture of David Foster Wallace
David Foster WallaceThe Best American Essays 2007

JAY: Why is a story more upfront than life?LENORE: It just seems more honest, somehow.JAY: Honest me...

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All drama is about lies. All drama is about something that’s hidden. A drama starts because a situat...

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In this age, lies were the universal lubricant of the culture. A love of Truth and commitment to it ...

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I don't know if this deception qualified as a half-step down the slippery slope. I had no sensation ...

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Words are the wellspring of the world, and language is the most powerful weapon in the ancient and s...

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One swallows the lie that flatters, but sips the bitter truth drop by drop.

Picture of Denis Diderot
Denis DiderotRameau's Nephew / D'Alembert's Dream

Brendan knew about the truth. In most cases, it was just a matter of deciding whether you wanted to ...

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Like the layers of an onion, under the first lie is another, and under that another, and they all ma...

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Picture of Derrick Jensen
Derrick JensenA Language Older Than Words

But people as a rule believe only what they want to believe, and if you tell them anything else they...

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But what do you say if you're asked a direct question and you can't tell the truth and you can't tel...

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But the lie had to be a good one, because if your lie is badly done it makes everyone feel wretched,...

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Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.

Picture of Dorothy Allison
Dorothy AllisonBastard Out of Carolina

The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the t...

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To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either schola...

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Picture of Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. SayersThe Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1

To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either schola...

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Picture of Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. SayersThe Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1

See that the mind is honest, first; the rest may follow or not as God wills. [That] the fundamental ...

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Picture of Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. SayersThe Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1

The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but...

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The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief in lies that have been foisted upo...

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Pedro Algorta, a lawyer, showed me the fat dossier about the murder of two women. The double crime h...

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Despite the variety and the differences, and however much we proclaim the contrary, what the media p...

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That, as my cousin Nord would say, is where my improvised lie falls apart.

Holly clambered after him, struggling up the human-size steps. "Wait! Just wait," she called, overta...

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We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.

You can deceive yourself with truth too. That's an even more dangerous dream.

World War I was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth...

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It was entirely taken for granted that there wasn't any lying in our family, and I was advanced in a...

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