Quotes & Sayings About Everybody Lies

I'll never speak to another person without telling the truth. I've been a cruel man in my time, I've been a devious man in my time, like everybody else. I've told lies in my time. But I've seen enough suffering to experiment with the truth. — Jack Kirby

Everybody gathered at my Aunt Hannah's house, and we sat around and talked, ate, drank and told lies. That's what people do, and I just sat there and listened. — Andre Holland

Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling. — David Geffen

Nobody wants to be a part of your story. Everybody wants you to elaborate on their fantasies. — Michael Bassey Johnson

When an orphan is depressed," wrote Wilbur Larch, "he is attracted to telling lies. A lie is at least a vigorous enterprise, it keeps you on your toes by making you suddenly responsible for what happens because of it. You must be alert to lie, and stay alert to keep your lie a secret. Orphans are not the masters of their fates; they are the last to believe you if you tell them that other people are also not in charge of theirs. When you lie, it makes you feel in charge of your life. Telling lies is very seductive to orphans. I know," Dr. Larch wrote. "I know because I tell them, too. I love to lie. When you lie, you feel as if you have cheated fate
your own, and everybody else's. — John Irving

It's the basic truth of the human condition: everybody lies. — House

Petra turned to her. "Everybody lies about who they are. Name one person here who isn't doing that and I will drop out right now!"
Shanti felt that snake of truth coil around her legs, threatening to squeeze.
"I didn't mean ... "
"No one ever does." Petra said, shoving the baton back at Shanti. — Libba Bray

Father Ratti had often explained, in Religious Knowledge class, that true humility did not mean a sense of worthlessness or the kind of timidity that caused some people to be cheated and bullied all their lives. The virtue of humility, Ratti said, was merely the faculty of intelligence operating properly "The man of wisdom," Ratti explained once, "fears only one man on earth. Do you know who that is?" And when everybody guessed wrong - some said the Pope, some said King Ferdinand - Ratti said, "The man of wisdom fears himself. He knows who it is who tells him the most plausible lies, the lies he wants to believe. — Robert Anton Wilson

Never speak of yourself to others; make them talk about themselves instead; therein lies the whole art of pleasing. Everybody knows it, and everyone forgets it. — Jules De Goncourt

Your husband certainly love money,' she said. 'That is no lie Money have pretty face for everybody, but for that man money pretty like pretty self, he can't see nothing else. — Jean Rhys

You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She's haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Call it an issue. Call it baggage. But I really hated lies. They're ugly things, festering like wounds, spreading like disease. They're winner-less crimes that hurt everybody in the end. — Cora Carmack

If someone lies, well, you had a choice to trust that person or not. I think the way my father raised me, well, he trusted everybody. And that worked for him. — Tom Brady

The truth is always a disappointment, which is why everybody lies. — Frederic Beigbeder

There are the stars
doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings out there. Just chalk ... or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. Strain's so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest. — Thornton Wilder

People have always told tales. Long before humanity learned to write and gradually became literate, everybody told tales to everybody else and everybody listened to everybody else's tales. Before long it became clear that some of the still illiterate storytellers told more and better tales than others, that is, they could make more people believe their lies. — Gunter Grass

Everybody lies about sex. People lie during sex. If it weren't for lies, there'd be no sex. — Jerry Seinfeld

The most important thing a writer can do after completing a sentence is to stay in the room. The great temptation is to leave the room to celebrate the completion of the sentence or to go out in the den where the television lies like a dormant monster and rest up for a few days for the next sentence or to go wander the seductive possibilities of the kitchen. But. It's simple. The writer is the person who stays in the room. The writer wants to read what she is in the process of creating with such passion and devotion that she will not leave the room. The writer understand that to stand up from the desk is to fail, and to leave the room is so radical and thorough a failure as to not be reversible. Who is not in the room writing? Everybody. Is it difficult to stay in the room, especially when you are not sure of what you're doing, where you're going? Yes. It's impossible. Who can do it? The writer. — Ron Carlson

The truth doesn't get you very far on the streets, or in a group home, or even in high school. That's probably why the idea of Liars, Inc. appealed to me. Everybody lies. You might as well get paid for it. — Paula Stokes

The opportunity for evil in itself does not suffice; people need a rationale as well. Consider how unpleasant, how awkward it must be when your neighbor, catching his breath (and that can happen anytime), screams, 'Why?' - or, 'Aren't you ashamed?!' It's embarrassing to stand there without a ready answer. A crowbar makes a poor rebuttal, everybody senses that. The whole trick lies in having the proper grounds to brush aside such aggravating objections. Contemptuously. Everyone wants to commit a villainy without having to feel like a villain. — Stanislaw Lem

Because everybody lies. It's part of living in society. Don't get me wrong-I think it's necessary. The last thing anyone wants is to live in a society where total honesty prevails. Can you imagine the conversations? You're short and fat, one person might say, and the other might answer, I know. But you smell bad. It just wouldn't work. So people lie by omission all the time. People will tell you most of the story ... and I've learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they're afraid. -Jo — Nicholas Sparks

I was the biggest liar for no reason, and then as I got older, I thought, 'Why am I lying to everybody?' I would hear other people lie and be like, 'You sound so stupid.' So then I would just change my lies. The only person I lie to is my little sister, when I steal her clothes. — Kendall Jenner

It was too easy to lie, when you'd practised it a few times. It was hard the first time, but once it flow from your tongue like the perfect summer breeze, and everybody seemed to believe in it, it became mundane. You'd just have to program it first, copy and paste the same old sentences all over again. — Diyar Harraz

Everything is fine, nobody is happy... — Anonymous

Imagine a world in which people told lies as a matter of principle, where lying was regarded as a good and moral thing to do. In such a world, lying itself would cease to have any meaning. Lying needs a presumption of truth for its very definition. If a moral principle is something we should wish everybody to follow, lying cannot be a moral principle because the principle itself would break down in meaninglessness. Lying, as a rule for life, is inherently unstable. More generally, selfishness, or free-riding parasitism on the goodwill of others, may work for me as a lone selfish individual and give me personal satisfaction. But I cannot wish that everybody would adopt selfish parasitism as a moral principle, if only because then I would have nobody to parasitize. — Richard Dawkins

Everybody really knows what to do to have his life filled with joy. What is it? Quit hating people; start loving them. Quit being mad at people; start liking them. Quit doing wrong; quit being filled with fear. Quit thinking about yourself and go out and do something for other people. Everybody knows what you have to do to be happy. But the wisdom of the test lies in the final words: "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." — Norman Vincent Peale

In a way it's so easy, all he has to do is say what they want to hear and they're happy, they love him, everybody gets along. Sometimes he has to remind himself there's no dishonor in it. He hasn't told any lies, he doesn't exaggerate, yet so often he comes away from these encounters with the sleazy, gamey aftertaste of having lied. — Ben Fountain

Everybody, whether or not he puts the question vocally, wants to know whether life has any meaning, what his relation is to 'whatever gods there be,' why he is here, what his destiny is, how sin and pain may be overcome, whether prayer matters, what lies beyond death for himself and his loved ones. — Georgia Harkness

I think that any show that doesn't have huge ratings, that's what you're always up against. Meanwhile, conversations are ongoing. Everything is running the way that things usually run, in these types of situations. I guess we'll find out, like everybody else. But, we don't fret about it because, really, it's out of our control. We can only step back and do our work, and therein lies the serenity. We're hoping for the best and just doing what we love. — J.H. Wyman

I am amazed about how everyone wants to know about my love life. They whisper to me, 'Tell me the truth? Is it true?' Who cares? Because we have this job, we are to say to everybody what we do, or with whom we sleep? It's a bit absurd, but that's why everybody lies so much. — Penelope Cruz

When everybody worships all sort of religious lies and illogical myths, dare to be there, in the land of reason! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Everybody lies about sex. — Robert A. Heinlein

The law doesn't require truth, only the appearance of it. Most cases simply rest on a version of it that's acceptable to both sides. You want to know the only truth is? Everybody lies.
Elwin Stark — John Connolly

For having the courage to tell the truth during the war when everybody else was telling lies — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Their coverage on the Fox News Channel has been atrocious. The stuff that comes out of Sean Hannity's mouth has been infuriating. The stuff that Bill O'Reilly says has been illogical. You go up and down the schedule and it's insanity over there. The number of lies, perpetuated, promoted by Fox News is just shameful and it hurts everybody. — David Shuster

Perfect by nature, icons of self indulgence. Just what we need more lies about our world. — Evanescence

The funny thing about Thanksgiving ,or any big meal, is that you spend 12 hours shopping for it then go home and cook,chop,braise and blanch. Then it's gone in 20 minutes and everybody lies around sortof in a sugar coma and then it takes 4 hours to clean it up. — Ted Allen

It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners! — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be failure. Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure. In this world, which is to say on the level of form, everybody "fails" sooner or later, of course, and every achievement eventually comes to naught. All forms are impermanent. — Eckhart Tolle

People are so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone are rosy. — George Eliot

Everybody always talks about the science fiction genre, in particular, which always makes me think about people in spaceships. I can appreciate that, but that's not really where I think my dramatist aspect lies. — Quentin Tarantino

That's one of the great lies of intimacy, to pretend you know everything - you cannot. No matter how close you've been, over however many years, there remain secrets. I think we all know that - that you don't tell everybody everything. — Siri Hustvedt

If you're dealing with personal kind of acting, you're not going to want to open up and expose it to everybody, because that's where the power lies, you know? It would be a little like showing your hand in poker, and then hoping you can still win. — Jim Parrack

Why does everybody think that women are debasing themselves when we expose the conditions of our own debasement? Why do women always have to come clean? The magnificence of Genet's last great work, The Prisoner of Love, lies in his willingness to be wrong: a seedy old white guy jerking off on the rippling muscles of the Arabs and Black Panthers. Isn't the greatest freedom in the world the freedom to be wrong? — Chris Kraus

I suppose it was the worst book any man has ever written. It was a colossal tome and faulty from start to finish. But it was my first book and I was in love with it. If I had had the money, as Gide had, I would have published it at my own expense. If I had had the courage that Whitman had, I would have peddled it from door to door. Everybody I showed it to said it was terrible. I was urged to give up the idea of writing. I had to learn, as Balzac did, that one must write volumes before signing one's own name. I had to learn, as I soon did, that one must give up everything and not do anything else but write, that one must write and write and write, even if everybody in the world advises you against it, even if nobody believes in you. Perhaps one does it just because nobody believes; perhaps the real secret lies in making people believe. That the book was inadequate, faulty, bad, terrible, as they said, was only natural. — Henry Miller

There's no Saints; everyone lies. Everybody betrays everybody sooner or later too. The quicker you get that through your head, the better."
From "Hostages — Erik Hansen

Hate looks just like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into the semblance of something too passive to punch. — Tahereh Mafi

But little white lies here and there is human nature. Everybody does that. — Lucy Hale

The first rule in life is 'everybody lies.' Remember that and you'll get a lot further. — Jennifer Crusie

In India nearly everybody spoke metaphorically except the English who spoke bluntly and could make their most transparent lies look honest as a consequence; whereas any truth contained in these metaphorical rigmaroles was so deviously presented that it looked devious itself. — Paul Scott

In Lakefield View, everybody has a secret. Behind every smile lies a dark story. Behind every hello is a hidden goodbye. — Gavin Hetherington

Lack of accomplishment is one thing; deceit is quite another. Everyone who has followed her career knows that Hillary is dishonest to the core, a "congenital liar" as columnist William Safire once put it. The writer Christopher Hitchens titled his book about the Clintons No One Left to Lie To. Even Hollywood mogul David Geffen, an avid progressive, said a few years ago of the Clintons, "Everybody in politics lies but they do it with such ease, it's troubling."3 — Dinesh D'Souza

Do we know what practices would be effective in resisting aliens? Wouldn't the public have to be convinced, in all countries, that there is such a threat? When have the major nations on this planet shown they can agree on any military course of action? Earthlings are already spending a trillion dollars a year on things military. Where would the money come from? Krugman seems to be suggesting more lies are what is needed. How about everybody cutting their military budgets in half and feeding people instead? — Stanton T. Friedman

It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what. The weird thing about telling someone they're dying is it tends to focus their priorities. You find out what matters to them. What they're willing to die for. What they're willing to lie for. — David Shore

Zarathustra, the first to recognize that the optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist though perhaps more detrimental says: "Good men never speak the truth. The Good preach of false shores and false security. You were born and bred in the lies of the good. Through the good everything has become false and twisted down to the very roots". Fortunately the world is not built solely to serve good natured herd animals their little happiness ; to desire everybody to become a "good man", "a herd animal", blue-eyed, benevolent, "a beautiful soul" - or, as Herbert Spencer wished - altruistic, would mean robbing existence of its great character, to castrate mankind and reduce humanity to a sort of wretched Chinadom. And this some have tried to do! It is precisely this that men have called morality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There's a war between two wolves inside everybody. One is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other's good. It's love, peace, beauty, happiness, truth, hope, joy, humility, kindness, and empathy.

"Who wins...?"

"The one you feed". — MK Asante

You're a wonderful man, Steele. And behind that tough-as-nails exterior lies a heart of gold." "Yeah, well, don't feel the need to tell everybody that," he said gruffly. "You're the only one who needs to know that kind of information." She grinned. — Maya Banks

In Caverna lies were an art and everybody was an artist, even young children. — Frances Hardinge

Everybody lies ... every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude will convey deception. — Mark Twain

Everybody has secrets, everybody lies, and everybody cheats their way through life for self-fulfillment. We wouldn't do it if we felt sorry; we do it because it's our human right to seek happiness. — E.K. Blair

Pull up a step, Ace," I told him. He did, but he had the fidgets. He kept looking for his lucky exit. I told him, "I didn't really want you. But I can't get ahold of Winger." Not that I'd tried. "What? Who?" "Your girlfriend. Big blond goof with no common sense, always has an angle, never tells the truth if a lie will do. Her." "Part of that fits everybody in this thing," Morley said. "Even up on the Hill, they turned the truth to quicksilver." "Untruths, too." "Quicksilver lies. I like that." "Deadly quicksilver lies." I spotted friend C.J. Carlyle. "Look who missed the slaughter at Maggie Jenn's place. — Glen Cook